A stumble through the left-side of the web

The statements of fact in Ewin Hannan's report about Gillard, Hartigan and Mitchell

2011-09-03T15:50:00.009+10:00

... and making a cameo appearance for added rhetorical flourish, Andrew Bolt

The following is a presentation of the facts reported by Ewin Hannan's article in September 3 edition of the Australian: "8am call that put Julia Gillard's old news on front page".

The presentation here is given in the dry chronological order of the events as they occurred, rather than in an order better suited to The Australian's rhetorical purposes.

Hannan's article does include several assertions by Mitchell about Gillard being "apoplectic" and "furious".

It also contains a denial by Andrew Bolt that he had any contact with Glenn Milne and his assertion that there "is no vast right-wing conspiracy against the Prime Minister". Interestingly, on the same day this article was published, Bolt claimed -- with zero evidence -- that the ABC's dropping of Glenn Milne from this week's "The Insiders" was evidence of a conspiracy to "protect Gillard".. He also stated in that article that this conspiracy was so "sinister and shameful" that there "should be a riot". To which I say: #nochaffbags.

The rhetorical point of The Australian's article -- from its title through to its conclusion --seems to be that Gillard has only her self to blame that "old" allegations "hit the front page". Presumably, in News Limited's universe Prime Ministers are not entitled to seek to protect themselves from libel.

These elements are not further discussed here; the interested reader is referred to the original article.

In the remainder of this presentation, I have tried to refrain from making any statements of my own opinion. Perhaps that is not how one is meant to present facts. But then what would I know about journalism? I am merely a software developer.

On Saturday, September 3, The Australian published an account by Ewin Hannan of conversations between the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the chief executive of News Limited John Hartigan and The Australian's editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell that took place on Monday 29th August. The report also referred to earlier conversations that took place between Gillard and Hartigan two days earlier, on Saturday 27th of August.

According to Hannan, Gillard rang Hartigan on Saturday. Hartigan stated that:

"She brought to my notice that she had information that Andrew Bolt or Steve Price or both were likely to publish assertions that were first made public in 2007 and she was very concerned by this because she said, when they were raised at that time, they were wrong and inaccurate and damaging,"

Hartigan made inquiries of Price and Bolt and then called Gillard back. Hannan reported:

"I gave her an assurance that, were something to be published, we would give her an opportunity to respond before it was published", he said.

Hartigan had made inquiries at the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph. He made no inquiries to The Australian because he said Gillard had not nominated the newspaper.

On Monday, August 29, The Australian published an opinion piece by Glenn Milne in which Milne stated: "What the lawyers would not allow to be reported was the fact that Gillard shared a home in Fitzroy bought by Wilson using the embezzled funds.". Note that Hannan's report of September 3 did not include full text of this statement, presumably in deferrence to accepted journalistic practice &/or an understanding between News Limited and Gillard. Hannan's report states "The unproven allegations, in political terms, are ancient, and have been rehashed numerous times by critics of Labor and Gillard over the past 16 years." and outlines the circumstances in which the allegations had been raised publicly in the past.

As a consequence of this publication, Gillard rang Hartigan around 8am on Monday. According to Hartigan, Gillard said on Monday: "This has broken the deal we had.". Hannan reports that "Hartigan rejected the claim, insisting The Australian did not cover his original undertaking. (sic)"

When Gillard called Hartigan on Monday morning, Hannan reports:

According to Hartigan, Gillard put a series of demands that she wanted addressed in 15 minutes. The deadline was later pushed back to 9am.

As well as a public apology and the Milne article being taken offline, she wanted a commitment that the allegations never be repeated again in The Australian. This demand was later extended to all News Limited newspapers and their websites.
"She said they were very damaging accusations," Hartigan said. "She wanted some action and she wanted it quickly."
Hartigan told Gillard he would speak to Chris Mitchell, The Australian's editor-in chief.

Hannan reports that Mitchell then rang Gillard but does not report the substance of any conversation between the two. He then reports:

Asked yesterday for comment regarding the accounts given by Hartigan and Mitchell, a spokesman for the Prime Minister released a one-paragraph statement last night that read: "Those accounts of the conversations are false and inaccurate. Considering what The Australian has already published this week, that's hardly surprising."
According to Hartigan and Mitchell, for an hour on Monday morning there was a flurry of phone calls, emails and texts between them, Gillard and lawyers, including News Limited's chief general counsel, Ian Philip.
Hartigan said he had six conversations with Gillard during this period, as well as exchanges of text messages and emails.

Hannan also reports that:

Mitchell, who was not working on the Sunday, said the column was not sent to lawyers before publication.

He said the column should have been legalled, particularly given it contained the above-mentioned paragraph.

Given this admission by the editor-in-chief, it is perhaps not surprising that:

By 9am on Monday, Mitchell had emailed a suggested form of apology to the Prime Minister, which Gillard agreed upon. Her demand that the allegations never be repeated in any News Limited publication was rejected.

Milne's column was removed from The Australian's website and replaced with an apology.

"The Australian published today an opinion piece by Glenn Milne which includes assertions about the conduct of the Prime Minister," it read.

"The Australian acknowledges these assertions are untrue. The Australian also acknowledges no attempt was made by anyone employed by, or associated with, The Australian to contact the Prime Minister in relation to this matter. The Australian unreservedly apologises to the Prime Minister and to its readers for the publication of these claims."

#notruckwits - a call for #CalmerDiscourse

2011-09-02T08:50:00.014+10:00

Sent as a letter to the SMH, Friday September 2.

On Thursday, we yet again saw an angry crowd of anti-carbon tax protesters waving placards that depicted a dog with the words "Ditch Gillard" and another that said "Tolerance is our demise". Some of these protesters screamed "maggots" at Anthony Albanese who addressed the rally.

Marching in solidarity with these protesters was the Liberal Party MP, Sophie Mirabella. In her speech, she reportedly called on protesters "not to be intimidated". By what, it is not clear . Perhaps it was the crowd of smiling carbon tax supporters up the road who chose to avoid an angry confrontation by staying away from the protest rally.

I call on Sophie Mirabella, MP to publicly and strongly repudiate the uglier sections of the crowd that she chose to support yesterday.

I also call on supporters of the Liberal Party who oppose the carbon tax, but are appalled by the angry mobs who turn up at such rallies to urge their MPs to issue similar public repudiations. Liberal Party MPs should refuse to attend such rallies until the organisers do something concrete about defusing the heat from the crowds they attract.

Finally, the Liberal Party should be strongly repudiating its supporters in the media, such as Alan Jones, who repeatedly foster such disturbing, anti-democratic tendencies with incendiary rhetoric such as his call for elected politicians to be dragged out to sea in "chaff bags".

Updated 16:10, 2 September: On reflection, the call for Sophie Mirabella to repudiate the entire crowd is, of course, quite wrong so I have amended my call. However, she should be asked to repudiate the uglier elements of the crowd in the interests of encouraging calmer discourse.

Open Letter To Sophie Mirabella, MP to repudiate degradation of the political discourse

2011-09-02T06:56:00.005+10:00

Today I wrote an open letter to Sophie Mirabella, MP calling for her to repudiate the disgusting tactics used by the people she marched in solidarity with during Thursday's anti-carbon tax rallies.

Australians, particularly Australian voters, deserve better from their politicians.

Copies were also sent to Anthony Albanerse, Tanya Plibersek and Malcolm Turnbull.

Dear Ms Mirabella,

In the press today, it was reported that yesterday you marched along side and in solidarity with an angry mob of protesters against the Government's carbon tax policy.

The fact that Liberal Party MPs voluntarily associate themselves with angry mobs that carry signs such as "ditch the bitch" and "tolerance is our demise" astonishes me.

This is extremely degrading to the political discourse in this country.

I call on you to strongly and publicly repudiate protests of this kind and also statements from your supporters in the media like Alan Jones who have called for Gillard and Brown to be dragged out to sea in "chaff bags".

How the Liberal Party expects to survive the next election campaign with ads that portray the compatriots of the Liberal Party as a blood thirsty, irrational mob is beyond me.

As a courtesy to you, I point to a blog posting I have written about this issue.

If you feel "intimidated" by this post, please act.

jon seymour.

Pro- and Anti- Carbon Tax Rallies - Marrickville 2011/09/01

2011-09-01T18:58:00.013+10:00

In Marrickville today there were two rallies.

One for the carbon tax

One against.

Which group of protesters listens to the likes of Alan Jones and reads the commentaries of Andrew Bolt?

Which group of protesters looks happy? Which looks angry and hateful?

How can the Liberal Party, and @SMirabella in particular, associate themselves with an irrational mob that carries signs such as "ditch the bitch" and "tolerance is our demise"?

Is this "decent" political discourse or is it cynical hate mongering by an Opposition party that has never relinquished the conceit that they are the natural party of Government?

Where are Ms Mirabella's repudiations of the disgusting, "intimidating" behaviours from the ranks of her anti-carbontax peers? Where is her repudiation of the call by Alan Jones to drag Gillard and Brown out to sea in "chaff bags"?

An MP of any political party claiming any legitimacy to rule, any concept of decency would loudly decry these outrages against the democratic discourse before slandering her opposition with false claims of "intimidation".

If, as Andrew Bolt outageously claims, Julia Gillard should be judged by the company she once kept 16 years ago, the Liberal Party MPs should be judged by the company they keep today.

How could any thinking, rational voter entrust the reins of Government to politicians who use irrational denial of science and hate as a political tactic? Or don't such voters matter to the Liberal Party, any more?

Pantomime of the oppressed, starring Andrew Bolt

2011-08-31T01:52:00.027+10:00

On Friday 26th August, 2UE presenter Michael Smith read out on air parts of a statutory declaration sent to him by Bob Kernohan, a former state AWU president.

On Saturday, 27th August in a blog post timestamped 09:46am (since removed), Andrew Bolt included excerpts of this statutory declaration that had already "been read out or paraphrased" by Smith.

According to Bolt, Gillard rang John Hartigan on Saturday "to check whether I or another News Limited journalist would be pursuing the story." Bolt states that "after calls were made to me and papers I write for, she was assured I was not."

Bolt does not say whether or not Gillard was given any assurances about whether any journalist from any other News Limited publication would be writing such a story. However, given that Gillard asked a News Limited executive about News Limited journalists in general, it is unclear why such an executive would attempt to evade such a direct question from a Prime Minister by responding with a half truth.

In any case, on Monday 29th of August, the Australian did publish a copy of an article by Glenn Milne which contained the words:

"What the lawyers would not allow to be reported was the fact that Gillard shared a home in Fitzroy bought by Wilson using the embezzled funds. There is or was no suggestion Gillard knew about the origin of the money."

As quoted by: Tony Wright, The Age, August 30.

Some time on Monday morning, Bolt reports that Gillard went "ballistic", called both Hartigan and the Australian editor-in-chief, Chris Mitchell with "multiple" calls (emphasis Bolt's) and "demanded an immediate retraction".

Again, according to Tony Wright of the Age:

"Shortly after 9.30am, Milne's column disappeared from The Australian's website and was replaced by a short and sharp apology, headlined ''Correction''.

"''The Australian published today an opinion piece by Glenn Milne which includes assertions about the conduct of the Prime Minister,'' it read. ''The Australian acknowledges these assertions are untrue. The Australian also acknowledges no attempt was made by anyone employed by, or associated with, The Australian to contact the Prime Minister in relation to this matter. The Australian unreservedly apologises to the Prime Minister and to its readers for the publication of these claims.''"

Tony Wright goes on to state:

"The Age understands Ms Gillard was furious not only because the column included a false claim, but because she had been led to believe by Mr Hartigan that News Ltd newspapers were not intending to pursue the decades-old story of her former conman lover."

Over on Andrew Bolt's blog, in an update to a new post originally dated Monday 29th August, 05:44 am Bolt had quoted extensively from Milne's article, including Milne's assertion of fact about Gillard sharing a house with Bruce Morton Wilson. The quotation was accompanied by Bolt's own rider which stated that:

"(I am not sure that Gillard did share a home with Wilson. My own understanding is that she maintained her own house.)"

This post remained published on Bolt's blog until after 7pm Monday. Neither News Limited or Bolt appeared to be in any hurry to remove the post even though it quoted extensively from the very article that The Australian had already retracted and issued an apology for.

On first glance this failure to remove Bolt's post, given the real threat of legal action (or, if you believe Bolt, worse) might seem strange. Yet, on second glance, not. Bolt, unlike Milne, was not asserting the truth of the allegation merely reporting the allegation that Milne had made. This is no different to the quotes of Milne's allegation that Tony Wright included in his Age and SMH reports about the furore, reports that remain published to this day.

It is not clear when Bolt's blog posts of Saturday 27th and Monday 29th were removed from the Herald Sun website although the Monday post was still available as of 7pm Monday. Neither Bolt, nor News Limited have explained why these posts were removed. News Limited has not apologised for these posts nor has it issued any statement to indicate that these posts were removed at Gillard's behest. Neither Bolt nor News Limited have explained the timing of the removal of Bolt's blog posts, particularly the long delay between the removal of the Australian article and the removal of Bolt's extensive quotations from the same article.

It seems unlikely that the posts were removed at "Gillard's insistence" since if she objected to the posts she would have requested that these posts be removed on Saturday when she first learnt of their existence or at the very latest Monday morning at the same time she contacted both Mitchell and Hartigan about the article in The Australian. The fact that at least some of Bolt's posts were not removed until late on Monday night indicates that no such request was made. That being the case, and in absence of evidence to the contrary, one is entitled to assume that the decision to remove Bolt's posts was an internal decision made by News Limited for their own reasons. Until and unless these reasons are explained, we can only speculate what they might be.

Bolt himself only claims that the retraction of The Australian article was at "Gillard's insistence". He does not claim that Gillard insisted that his own blog posts be removed, although he does state that he believes that the fact that they were was an "overreaction", presumably by News Limited management.

Roll on, Tuesday. In a post timestamped, 12:01am Tuesday 30th of August, Bolt stated mysteriously:

No politics until further notice. Principles to weigh up. Faith to keep. Sorry.

Bolt then went on 2GB radio and stated:

"I'd like people to check what was said before and what the prime minister responded to. It would be nice if they could check with what was said now and has been withdrawn completely and see what difference there is, but you can't do that. There is to be no debate and maybe that's fantastic, maybe that's great and what people want."

In this statement, Bolt claims that people cannot "check ... what the prime minister responded to".

This is a very strange claim to make. After all, Bolt's own readers had been able to read the text of the retracted allegation on Bolt's own blog for the whole of Monday, August 29 - a period of at least 11 hours after News Limited retracted and apologised for the original article. Everyone else could read the "startling" claim in Milne's article simply by reading the Fairfax reports about the article that remain published to this day.

If anyone is to blame for the inability of Bolt's readers to "check ... what the Prime Minister responded to", then it is News Limited.

In any case, if there is any doubt about exactly who said what, when, Stephen Mayne has provided a handy little compendium.

One really can't help but wonder if the removal of Bolt's blog posts, his subsequent dummy spit, and then his groveling thank you to News Limited management on August 31 that - "I thank News Limited for defying the Prime Minister and letting me write as I have above." - was part of an elaborate pantomine to make it appear that Gillard "pulled strings ... to shutdown a debate".

The facts seem clear.

On Saturday, Gillard sought from and was apparently given assurance by News Limited that it was not planning to pursue the story further. On Monday, contradicting this assurance, The Australian published an assertion of fact that Gillard believed was clearly false. Gillard, as is her right, demanded a retraction. News Limited promptly retracted the article and issued an apology in which it acknowledged that some of Milne's assertions were untrue. At some much later time, News Limited decided to remove Bolt's blog posts and he apparently spat the dummy and went on strike for a day. After claiming News Limited's own, apparently unprompted, removal of his own blog posts as evidence of the "Prime Minister's" desire to "shutdown debate" he put pen to paper again to write up his version of his brave and troubled struggle for our freedom.

Pantomime. Pure pantomime.

Update: 10:04 31/8 - Sorry, forgot what month we are in, so amended June -> August. I can't be certain that Michael Smith read parts of the statutory declaration on air Friday, August 26. However, if what Bolt wrote is accurate, Smith must have done so at some point before Bolt updated the 8/27 09:46 post. Again, it is not clear when that was.

11:43 31/8 - Clarified, by adding context, that Tony Wright's article quoted a contentious line from the Milne piece.

23:37 31/8 It appears I was overly cautious in my 10:04 update. It appears that Michael Smith did read from the statutory declaration on Friday August 26 as stated above. This is confirmed in numerous places, not least of which was Bolt's article of 31/8.

Readers of this article may be amused/bemused/confused to learn that the full text of Milne's article was rescued from the weak knees and trembling hands of News Limited management by one John Winston Howard. Apparently he has been displaying it, unedited and unannotated, since 12pm on Monday 29th August on his facebook page.

Readers will note that there is not a single controversial assertion or allegation in the full article that has not been highly visible in the public domain since Monday.

This fact continues to make a mockery of Bolt's claim that the intent of Gillard's demands was to "shutdown debate". There is nothing else in the retracted article that is contentious.

It seems clear as day to this author that Gillard's primary intent was, as she stated, to demand the repudiation, by The Australian, of a single allegation that she has long insisted was false.

To let it stand unchallenged would have been to concede its truth. And why should she do that?

3 Sep, 11:58 The Australian has now published an account of the conversations that occurred between Gillard, Hartigan and Milne on Saturday last week and Monday this week. I may write a separate post about this at some point.

In the meantime, and since comments on the "The Drum" copy of this article are now closed, feel free to comment here if you believe there are any significant errors of fact or speculation in this post.

Please keep it calm. Stick to the facts and critique my statements and speculations, if you must. Attack me personally and you will be ignored for being a #truckwit. I don't expect I will have to remove any comments, but if I do, I will document the nature of the comments that I remove and why. I reserve the right to alter this moderation policy if circumstances warrant it. If I do that, I will explain why.

Romak Suction Cups

2011-08-14T14:57:00.004+10:00

Just in case I ever need to find these again:

Gromet Suction Cups (794110, 22m, Qty 3)
Romak Hardware Distributors  (03) 9795 6789

On Applications, Plugins and Packages

2011-04-28T15:09:00.008+10:00

I am having a bizarre discussion on the git mailing list about whether it is ok for an application (git, say) to provide its own plugin installation command.

E.g.:

  git install gitwork.

The idea has been described as 'horrid', 'utterly horrid' and 'crap'.

Bizarre.

The concept of a division of responsibilities between 3 roles seems to be misunderstood.

There are 3 roles:

application, plugin and package.

The application provides the plugin manager.
The distribution provides the package manager.
The package manager packages the plugin as a OS-specific package.
The package manager installs the package, containing the plugin.
The package manager calls the application's plugin manager to activate the plugin

Optionally, the application delegates plugin installation request to one or more package managers.

Simple, isn't it?

Yes, Ruby got it wrong. Why did it get it wrong?

ruby got it wrong because ruby has a plugin manager (gem) that wants to be a package manager.

Just because Ruby got it wrong, doesn't mean git can't get it right and be a better platform for it.

Read 1st - http://goo.gl/6KKwJ

2011-01-01T02:54:00.012+11:00

One reason you may be reading this is that your WiFi client let you know that there was an Open or WEP-encrypted WiFi network with the name "Read 1st - http://goo.gl/6KKwJ".

If so, you need to be aware that the WiFi network so described is quite insecure and anyone connected to it can intercept all unencrypted traffic passing across it.

You also need to understand Firesheep. In particular, you need to understand the vulnerability Firesheep exploits, and why it is in your interests to protect yourself against the techniques it exploits.

If you have any questions, send me an e-mail: jon.seymour@gmail.com.

Introducing geoloc

2010-12-30T18:26:00.007+11:00

I've created a tool called geoloc which uses publicly available information in the form of WiFi packet headers and Google API lookups to build Google maps of WiFi access points.

Here are two examples from Stanley St, East Sydney and outside QVB Jet also in Sydney.

Anyone who has Unix knowledge can download, install, and run the tool and build their own maps using kismet or airodump-ng outputs. For more information about this, see the HOWTO.

Please note that I have only plotted locations of MAC addresses as reported by Google for WiFi access points I observed when I was at these two locations. If the locations are inaccurate, this is because the data in the Google database for this MAC address is stale. I also collected client device MAC addresses (e.g. iPhones, iPads, other kinds of smart phones, laptops, etc), but I have not plotted this information nor have I published it any other form (nor do I have plans to).

Please also note that I have not hacked into any systems to collect this information. This information was obtained merely by listening to broadcast WiFi traffic and by using this information to drive calls to the Google location APIs. This is exactly the technique that Google (and others) use to build their database of WiFi MAC address locations and to provide location information to mobile applications.

I am aware that publishing this page and associated tool may scare the willies out of some people. Perhaps it should. I have discussed the implications of these kinds of technological capabilities in other recent posts on this blog. In future posts, I will discuss what options might be needed to prevent potential gross violations of privacy implied by these capabilities.

Using Location Based Services To Plot Locations Of A Given Device Type

2010-12-29T19:33:00.006+11:00

One property of MAC addresses is that they are allocated in sequence. So, if you know the MAC address of one device, you can easily derive the MAC address of similar devices.

And, once you know the MAC address of a device, courtesy of Google, you also probably know its physical location.

Here are two examples - the locations, around Sydney of up to 83 different Pocket WiFi devices that I discovered by probing a total of 256 MAC addresses.

Or, further a field, the locations around the world of 176 Apple TimeCapsule devices I discovered, once again, by probing a total of 256 MAC addresses.

The urge to cleanse

2010-12-29T10:55:00.003+11:00

This post builds on my other posts and explains the commercial reasons why access point location databases maintainers will be forced, by their own commercial interests, to start identifying mobile access points.

Providers of access point location databases have two motivations - to extend their coverage until it is complete and to ensure that their coverage maps are and remain accurate.

Initially, providers attained coverage by paying people to drive around in cars with WiFi and GPS gear attached. One way to maintain the maps is to repeat the journeys with new drivers (or old drivers who don't bore easily).Another way would be to make use of the millions of GPS and WiFi capable receuvers in the hands of people that are using their location based service APIs.

New WiFi access points can be added using location information from the consumer's device (eithe GPS, or other WiFi location fixes). Existing WiFi access points that give unstable location data can be removed from the database. All of this will happen auto-nomically, indeed, perhaps what Skyhook Wireless refers to as "Automated Self-Healing Network".

So, the drive to improve coverage could lead to mobile wifi access points being included in the database. The drive to improve accuracy of existing coverage could lead to "unstable" mobile access points being removed from the database.

In an ideal world, the access points with variable location functions would not be searchable. However, the information about the unstable (e.g. mobile) access points will have to be accumulated in order to preserve the integrity of the static parts of the mobile access point database.

The question is: what forces prevent the collected information being exploited? Are existing privacy laws sufficient and what evidence is there that they are?

In response to G.

2010-12-29T10:35:00.002+11:00

| Oops, my replay was too long for a comment, so it gets its own post.

G'day G,

You are quite correct that the mobile phone networks already have a wealth of this kind of data available to them.

I am not exactly sure why it hasn't proved such a problem but I think it is partly because they are not at liberty to sell the information at will, they are easily subject to regulation (being rather large and few in number) and they have never been in a position to convince the consumer that it is in the consumers' interests to let the telcos commercially exploit the information. I am also reasonably sure that law enforcement officials don't have carte blanche access to the data, although I don't claim to understand this area very well.

WiFi data is a little different because it is, by its nature in the public domain and there is not necessarily any direct contract in place between the consumer and harvester of the consumer's location data. There will no doubt be indirect relationships at some point, but it may be via chain of third parties.

With the advent of technologies like Four Square, consumers can now see direct benefits for themselves in location based services and are willingly using them for the direct benefits they derive from those services. Platform providers, such as Google, have taken advantage of this and implemented relatively open APIs because if they didn't, their competitors would.

One can hope that ethics will prevent Google taking the next step to client-level tracking APIs but such hopes have been misplaced in the past (e.g. w.r.t. FaceBooks continually slipping privacy standards).

I was quite frankly surprised how easy it was to reverse engineer my location from my access point's MAC address. It's not such a big deal when the MAC address is fixed because at the end of the day, so is my home address.

It starts to become a very big deal when my MAC address starts following me about since everyone from my nearest and dearest to complete strangers could use that information to reverse engineer my travels simply by firing up a WiFi device in my vicinity at some point in time and then getting access to the relevant database.

With regard to your second point, the problem is that if you use WiFi you can't prevent your MAC address leaking to any co-located WiFi device - even those that you are not communicating with. If you communicate, your MAC address will be exposed to anyone pre-disposed to collect it. If commercial entities start paying people to collect this information, it will be collected. Other people will be paid to correlate MAC addresses with your identity and then the picture is complete.

Now, I guess one defence against this might be pervasive deployment of MAC address randomisers on mobile WiFi devices. Geeks with a sufficiently open platform can do this for themselves. The average iPhone user won't be able to protect themselves like that unless the Government tells Apple they have to enable it.

jon.

mobile 802.11 - the parole bracelet for the man in the street

2010-12-29T05:50:00.022+11:00

I recently installed the "Find my iPhone" app on my iPhone.

I happened to notice that the position fix it gave on my iPhone was more accurate when WiFi was enabled than when only 3G was enabled.

This intrigued me, because I had not realised that WiFi networks are routinely used for location fixing purposes.

So, I did some more digging. It appears Apple uses WiFi location services provided by skyhookwireless.com. This company has a database of the MAC addresses of WiFi access points and their approximate locations. Applications deployed on devices equipped with a 802.11 wireless radio can scan the local environment for WiFi access points, take a note of the MAC address and signal strengths thus found and then exchange this information with the skyhookwireless API for an estimate of the device's current location.

It didn't take long to discover, using a few Google searches, that the Skyhook API can be exercised by anyone with rudimentary programming skills. The information returned by this API is the latitude and longitude of the MAC address, as known to Skyhook Wireless.

It then dawned on me, that I could use the same technique that Skyhook Wireless uses to collect MAC addresses and discover all the MAC addresses in my local neighbourhood. I could then use this information with the Skyhook Wireless API, to derive the corresponding physical locations of each MAC address. I could then use this information, together with the Google Maps API, to make create a map showing the location of each WiFi access point in my neighbourhood.

And so this I did, and here is the result.

The interactive version of the map (not shown) shows the MAC address and human friendly network name of each WiFi network in the immediate neighbourhood of my home.

This was a cool hack for an afternoon and I wrote it up on Facebook. A friend then showed me a feature of current versions of Firefox that allows web applications to work out your current location and, with your permission, exchange that information with the application provider.

To see how this works for your self, point your Firefox browser at: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/geolocation/ and then click the link entitled "Give it a try!". You will need to respond in the affirmative to a security warning that will appear at the top of the page. If you do this, the a Google map will be displayed showing your approximate location. The results will be more accurate if you are connected to a WiFi network when you do this. Try zooming in to the maximum resolution - you might be surprised how close it gets to where you are.

Fortunately, this feature of Firefox is optional and they have taken some care to ensure that a Firefox user does not unwittingly disclose their location without their own consent. Furthermore, there is an option available to disable the feature completely.

It was while researching this option that I noticed that theURI used for resolving physical locations pointed at a Google server. Sure enough Google has its own location services API, apparently independent of the services provided by Skyhook Wireless.

With a little bit of playing, I worked out how to expose the Google API to a command line shell, and this allowed me to probe the location of arbitrary MAC addresses. expanded_mac="00-11-22-33-44-55" && \ ssid="YourNetworkSSID" && \ curl -s --header "Content-Type: text/plain;" --data "{\"version\":\"1.1.0\",\"request_address\":true,\"wifi_towers\":[{\"mac_address\":\"$expanded_mac\",\"ssid\":\"$ssid\",\"signal_strength\":-50}]}" https://www.google.com:443/loc/json

I discovered two interesting differences between the Google API and the Skyhook Wireless API. The first is that Google Wireless API was able to resolve the MAC address of my Vodafone Pocket WiFi device (more on the implications of that, below). The second is that if Google doesn't recognize the MAC address it will fall back to using the source IP address of the request to provide a less accurate estimate of client's location. In my case, this means that Google defaults the location to a location near the Sydney GPO.

I also tried using the MAC addresses of client devices, such as my iPhone and iPad to see whether Google could resolve these. At first, I got a fright when I thought it was resolving a location for these devices, but then realised it had actually fallen back to use the source IP address of my ADSL gateway and not the MAC address of my individual devices.

So, it is good news that neither Skyhook Wireless or Google appear to be tracking client MAC addresses at present. On the otherhand, the other thing I learnt today is that there is no technical reason why they aren't doing it - the information about client MAC addresses is just as exposed as information about access points, although, because client MAC addresses tend to move about more than access points it is perhaps not as valuable for location fixing purposes which is apparently the market that both Skyhook Wireless and Google are pursuing at this point in time.

However, it seems inevitable that someone, somewhere, will find the temptation of capturing client-level MAC address/location/time-of-day triples to be an opportunity too hard to resist. One can certainly imagine security services looking at such a gold mine of information with large eyes, wet lips and hungry stomachs.

And this is where the issue of pocket WiFi becomes interesting. The current infrastructure that Skyhook Wireless and Google have built is designed to track access points, not clients. However, the rise of the iPad has started to create a demand for a technology that Vodafone, for example, is selling as the Pocket Wifi. These nifty little devices package a 3G modem and 802.11 WiFi router in a unit that is smaller than a slim mobile phone (you know, the form factor that everyone coveted before before the iPhone created the demand for large touch surfaces). The chief advantage of such a device is that the consumer can purchase a single 3G modem and share its wireless connection between gadgets such as the iPad and other devices like netbooks or laptops and thereby avoid having to purchase a separate 3G plan for each device.

The end result of this consumer convenience, however, is that a lot of people are going to be walking around the streets carrying with portable wireless access points in their pockets. And their MAC addresses will end up in the access point databases of Skyhook Wireless and Google. Eventually, someone will work out how to make a buck from this information and the pressure will be on to keep it up to date. For example: Google's record of my Pocket WiFi device was at least a week out of date, perhaps more.

And once they have done that, the pressure to collect location information from normal WiFi clients will increase and then suddenly, everyone carrying a WiFi-enabled smartphone (e.g., almost everyone) will be locatable, with exquisite precision, 24x7.

Scary, huh?

Update:Just because I could, I decided to plot some MAC addresses I found by doing a google search for the phrase "Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz Access Point:". Here's what I found:

MasterCard and Visa want to play politics, then game on...

2010-12-09T12:06:00.003+11:00

I have a concrete suggestion for a campaign idea.

The Australian Parliament, for example, could reserve for itself the right to impose a “freedom tax” on payment services like PayPal, MasterCard and Visa.

The tax rate would be set at 0% as a gesture of good will. However, if they fail to reverse their decision or ever act in this way again, the Parliament could choose to alter the rate to some non-zero percentage.

The collected tax would be either returned to the consumer or to a media organisation of the consumers &/or the Parliament’s choice.

This would serve to take payment services out of the political arena or provide a useful source of revenue to fund investigative journalism and other freedom preserving projects.

Once the idea of taxing payment services is accepted, payment services will rue they day they abandoned the rule of law to exercise political muscle.

ps: if any security services would care to entrap me with a femme fatale, I prefer brunettes.

Canadian Idiot advocates tyranny.

2010-12-03T09:44:00.003+11:00

Professor Tom Flanagan has advocated assassination of Julian Assange. What part of the Rule Of Law do you not understand, you freaking idiot.

Building git documentation on cygwin

2010-07-25T12:44:00.004+10:00

I had some trouble building the git documentation under cygwin. The issue is apparently that on cygwin the xmlcatalog is not set up to allow offline builds. In my case, my cygwin install was missing an /etc/xml/catalog file. The simplest fix in this case is to create a this file manually:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE catalog PUBLIC 
   "-//OASIS//DTD Entity Resolution XML Catalog V1.0//EN" 
   "http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/entity/release/1.0/catalog.dtd"
>
<catalog xmlns="urn:oasis:names:tc:entity:xmlns:xml:catalog">
  <rewriteURI 
     uriStartString = "http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current" 
     rewritePrefix = "/usr/share/sgml/docbook/xsl-stylesheets"
  />
  <rewriteURI 
     uriStartString="http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5" 
     rewritePrefix="/usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.5"
  />
</catalog>

Alternatively, you can update an existing file with:

xmlcatalog --noout \
   --add rewriteURI \
        http://docbook.sourceforge.net/release/xsl/current \
        /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xsl-stylesheets \
   /etc/xml/catalog
xmlcatalog --noout \
   --add rewriteURI \
         http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.5/xsl/current \
         /usr/share/sgml/docbook/xml-dtd-4.5 \
   /etc/xml/catalog

Greenberg

2010-07-25T00:25:00.004+10:00

After work this evening I decided to head up to the Cricketers' Arms to get some dinner and play some pool. Unfortunately the pool table was out of order, so I settled for dinner, some free AC power and some diddling with my git wrappers.

Then it occurred to me that it might fun to go to the Verona and see a film. Inception looked like the kind of film I like, but it was sold out so instead I elected to see Greenberg, a film I knew nothing about other than the poster I had seen on Friday which told me that it starred Ben Stiller. So, I thought it would be a light-hearted comedy.

Boy, was I wrong. It turned out to be about a narcissistic (tick) 40-something (tick) single guy (tick) with anger control issues (tick). The character doesn't drive (tick), takes pleasure in writing letters of complaint (tick) and is not troubled by the conventional pressure to succeed (tick).

It almost could have been about me, except for one thing (did I say the guy was narcissistic?) - the guy couldn't swim to save his life.

Fire truck with your mind

2010-06-23T16:06:00.008+10:00

As of Wednesday 23rd June, 2010, Google reported no exact matches for the phrase:

"Fire truck with your mind".

This page is an attempt to change that.

jon.

update mmmm: indexed (for me, at least) almost immediately. One advantage of using Blogger, I guess!

Some words, some progress

2010-02-06T09:50:00.003+11:00

She is not my friend
She is not my enemy
She is just someone.

On Values And Options

2009-11-30T23:56:00.010+11:00

Further thinking about the relationship between a Value and its related Option interface (what I was calling Ops) lead to the following construction rules:

A Value interface contains no methods
Storing a reference to an Option is fine, provided you can guarantee the reference is always non-null. If you can't guarantee this for some reason, declare a Value instead.
methods which return a reference to the Option interface must always return a non-null Option reference
Care should be taken not to store Options in ADT that have methods that can, under some circumstances, return null. For example, a map of type Map< ? , Value.Option> would not be safe since its get() method could return a null Value.Option reference under certain conditions.
Option references should never be declared as parameter types in method signatures
The methods on the Value interface inherited from java.lang.Object are @deprecated to warn the user they are calling the wrong interface

If an object stores a value object as a property of some container object, then one might expect to see a declaration like this:


class Container
{
    private Value.Option aProperty = Value.UNSPECIFIED;

    public Value.Option getProperty()
    {
        return aProperty;
    }

    public void setProperty(Value aValue)
    { 
        aProperty = Value.WITH.value(aValue);
    }
}

Where Value.WITH.value implements the catamorphism between Value and Value.Option.

The reasons for the asymmetry between the parameter type of the setter and the return type of the method are as follows:

As the consumer of a property, you don't want the hassle of applying a catamorphism to a return value before you can use it. It is reasonable for the method implementor to do this for you, and if the Option reference is the reference that is stored, it will, in any case, be trivial to do so
Given these construction rules, the only way to obtain a reference to an Option is to receive one from a method return or load one from a variable. If the Value -> Value.Option catamorphism and all other methods are guaranteed to never return null and you never initialize a Value.Option reference with null, there is no way you can receive a null Value.Option.
As the implementor of a class, you can guarantee by inspection that you never store or return a null Option. It is not possible for you, as an implementor, to guarantee that you will never receive a null Option-typed parameter from a caller. Type-safety will guarantee that you receive at least a Value. You can guarantee by construction that any Option reference derived from that value is not null. If you accept Option-typed parameters then you either have to assume that a caller will not make a mistake and pass a null or you have to apply a catamorphism to the parameter in order to restablish your certainity that it is not null. It seems simpler to re-use the Value -> Value.Option catamorphism in the setter method than to apply a second catamorphism to guard against the unlikely case that a caller has violated your method's contract.
Since the parameter type (Value) is different to the property declaration (Value.Option), type safety ensures that some kind of conversion will be applied to the parameter prior to it being stored. This prevents a lazy implementor of a setter method passing through a null reference to be stored in an Option-typed member variable.
Since returns typed with Value.Option are guaranteed by construction to be never null, even if the related value was null, there is no need for null checks in consuming code
The rules are simple to follow and unconditional in nature - any violations of these rules is a serious error and should be treated as such. There is no case for a storing or returning a null Option. Any such case is actually a case for passing or storing a null Value, which are the only safe types of reference to pass in this way.

ephipany: the path to null-safety is the zero-method value object

2009-11-28T03:51:00.024+11:00

Or, The Zen Of Zero-Method Value Objects...

I had an ephiphany the other day.

The path to null-safety is the zero-method value object.

Rationale: an interface that defines no methods cannot result in the generation of call-site that causes a NullPointerException for the simple reason that if there is no method, there can be no call. If there is no call, there can be no NullPointerException

Example 1: What you can't call, can't blow up


interface DangerousDateRange
{  
    boolean contains(Date operand);
}
DangerousDateRange dateRange = ...;

...

dateRange.contains(date); // legal, but potentially unsafe



interface SafeDateRange
{  
}
SafeDateRange safeDateRange = ...;

...

safeDateRange.contains(date); // illegal, but very safe

Ok, trivial point you say. But what use is a zero method value object? How useful can that really be? After all, how can a date range answer the contains question if it has no contains() method in the first place?

How useful? Very.

A zero-method object can still be the container of state, namely the value.

Operations can be performed on another interface. The interface can be well defined, even for the null reference.

Example 2: Making a zero-method value interface useful


interface SafeDateRange
{
   // here is where the value contract goes ...

   interface Ops
   {
       boolean contains(Date date);  
       SafeDateRange asValue();
   };

   // here is where we store state ...

   private class Impl extends SafeDateRange
   {
        private final Ops ops;

        private Impl(final Date lower, final Date upper)
        {
            ops = 
                new Ops()
                {
                    boolean contains(Date date)
                    {
                       // ... whatever
                    };

                    SafeDateRange asValue()
                    {
                         return Impl.this;
                    }       
                };
            }

        }            
        Ops asOps()
        {
                return ops;
        }
   }

   // this is how we generate new values

   BinaryOp<Date, Date, Ops> NEW = new BinaryOp<Date, Date,  Ops>()
   {
         Ops apply(final Date lower, final Date upper) { return new Impl(lower, upper); }
   }

   // and this is how we provide access to the behaviour
   // in a null-safe manner

   UnaryOp<SafeDateRange, Ops> OPS = new UnaryOp<SafeDateRange,  Ops>()
   {
        Ops apply(final SafeDateRange ops) 
        {
             if (ops instantof Impl)
             {
                 return ((Impl)ops).asOps();
             }
             else 
             {
                 // and this is how we make it null-safe 

                 return new SafeDateRange.Ops()
                 {
                     boolean contains(Date date)
                     {
                         return true;
                     }

                     SafeDateRange asValue()
                     {
                         return null;
                     }
                 }
             }
         }
   }

}

Example 3: Using A Null Safe Date Range



SafeDateRange safeDateRange = SafeDateRange.NEW.apply(lower, upper).asValue();
SafeDateRange.Impl impl = null; //illegal - can't declare impl

SafeDateRange.OPS.apply(safeDateRange).contains(test); // safe, legal, well-defined
SafeDateRange.OPS.apply(null).contains(test); // safe, legal, well-defined

impl.contains(test);    // illegal: impl can't have been declared in the first place

Example 4: Caveat: There will always be idiots...


class Foo
{
    SafeDateRange     safe;    // always do this
    SafeDateRange.Ops unsafe;  // almost never do this 
}

Foo foolish = new Foo();

...
SafeDateRange.OPS.apply(foolish.safe).contains(test); // legal, safe
foolish.unsafe.contains(test);                        // legal, unsafe

Yep, there will always be idiots. But hopefully you can teach idiots that declaring long-lived references (e.g. member variables) to SafeDateRange.Ops is almost always a bad thing. Exception: if you can guarantee, by construction, that a reference to SafeDateRange.Ops is never null, you can relax this rule. Update: Thinking about this further - declaring a Ops reference is fine and (for performance reasons probably preferable), but you have to ensure that it is never null to use it safely. See my later post for a discussion of this.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

I am almost certain that I am not the first to discover the zen of zero-method value objects so if you have seen this or a similar idea written up before, please let me know and I'll will include a reference to that place.

It would not surprise me, for example, if this is very similar to one of Tony Morris's ideas.

Update:

As suspected, this is something addressed by Tony Morris' functional java, as per this response from him


Hi Jon,
What you are discovering has this catamorphism:
λa.λx. (a -> x) -> x -> x

To translate that to Java:

interface Function { Y apply(X x); }
interface Thunk { X apply(); }
interface Nullable<A> {
  X cata(Function s, Thunk n);
}

It's available in Functional Java

Many (non-total) languages do not have null.

And this:

Haskell calls it Maybe, ML calls it option, Scala calls it Option,
Functional Java calls it Option. Note that it (the type constructor)
is a covariant functor and a monad. The catamorphism is the important
part. You can use languages that simply don't have null, or assume
language subsets without it (many Java users do). You can also write
in languages that guarantee termination i.e. all total functions (with
some sacrifices of course) e.g. Agda, Coq, Isabelle.

Lions. It's all about food.

2009-11-07T23:00:00.016+11:00

Concepts:

lions (real)
death (real)
food (real)

Lions cause death, because to them, it's all about food.

Concepts, about real things, linked together with plausible explanations to make a statement that has some correspondence to reality.

Compare and contrast

son of god (imaginary)
eternal life (imaginary)

Two imaginary concepts linked together haphazardly in an attempt to make a nonsensical statement about an imaginary state of reality.

Found: MP3 player

2009-11-07T14:56:00.006+11:00

I found an MP3 player which I believe belongs to a woman called Claire who was travelling from McMahon's Point ferry wharf at around 11:30am today (Saturday 7th November, 2009).

Contact me to arrange return of the player.

Save The Hopetoun - my 2 cents

2009-09-29T01:02:00.010+10:00

Inspired by Save The Hopetoun Hotel, this is my 2 cents, a letter to Clover Moore...

The Hopetoun Hotel is quite simply a magnificent insitution, quite unlike any other pub in Sydney. It is a large part of my social life. This is true, because the people are friendly, the pool table solid and the music entertaining.

This pub doesn't need security, most of the time, because the crowd is so good natured. The only time it does need security is when large, drunk crowds walk back from the SCG or SFS. In these circumstances, the owners provide security, even though it is rarely, if ever, called upon.

To let this venue fall victim to licensing laws is literally a cultural crime of the highest order - the 1500 facebook fans it gathered in less than 6 hours is strong testament to that.

I have gladly voted for you in the past, however, I will not hesitate to reconsider my future voting intentions if Sydney Council does not do everything in its power to assist the Hoey survive in something like its current form.

A response from Clover Moore - here.

Another year, another grand final...

2009-09-26T20:35:00.005+10:00

So another year has passed - 13, now, since the singularity.

All in all, it has been a relatively pleasant year, almost 2 years since the unexpected encounter with her in Sydney. With the benefit of hindsight I can see it was a good thing to be confronted directly with her ice cold attitude towards me - it has left no room for doubt.

I am actually starting to forget. The best example of this was the other day when I realised that I could not remember for sure if she suffers asthma and needs to use ventolin. I *think* she does, but I really can't decide if that is actual fact or mere confabulation.

Ah well, I guess I'll never know. Not that it matters, anyhow.

jon.

vodafone au prepaid mobile broadband on linux

2009-08-09T13:13:00.005+10:00

I recently purchased a Vodafone Prepaid Mobile Broadband USB stick but had some trouble getting it to work with Ubuntu 9.0.4

The secret sauce is to download the latest packages from here, configure the Vodafone Australia Pre-paid Mobile Broadband profile, then edit the profile and change the APN from vfinternet.au to vfprepaymbb

The rationale for the change is that this APN is what the Mac OSX build on the USB stick itself chooses to use - as revealed by appropriate logs.

I have raised a bug report on the VMC site to have this rolled into a future release of the Linux build.

BTW: with Ubuntu 9.0.4, it isn't strictly necessary to install VMC. You do, however, have to configure the APN in the connections manager per the discovery above (e.g. vfprepaymbb). The advantage of doing it this way, is that the connection plays nice with the Network Manager application and other applications which are integrated with it (like Firefox). The disadvantage is that you don't automatically get an SMS send receive + usage monitor application which is what VMC provides.

The impossible conversation

2009-02-12T08:07:00.003+11:00

Even now, my morning routine involves stepping into the shower and saying "Oh, <her name>!". I used to remind myself that I will never see her again and then get on with the rest of the day.

Of course, the ritual had to change when one day, quite unexpectedly, I did see her again.

Now, I remind myself that even if I ever do see her again I shall never again have a pleasurable conversation with her.

That was certainly true on our last chance meeting in 2007 and has, in fact, been true since she hung up on my life for good in January 1999.

Although that phone call ended amicably, I knew that it would likely be the last for a while. It took me a long time to realise, and then accept, that it would be our last phone call ever.

Thinking about the impossible conversation is not very rewarding, because I am brutally realistic about what it would be like. I'd be on my guard about expressing any sadness or resentment about the long alienation and she would simply be on her guard about expressing anything at all. I'd be afraid of asking questions that might impinge on her sense of privacy and security. In the unlikely event that she told me anything about her life I would again feel sad about being excluded from it.

The reason I desire the impossible conversation is not for the communication; I have expressed almost all I have to say in these pages and she has nothing to say.

No, the reason I desire the conversation is exactly the reason it is impossible. Such a conversation would represent a new beginning; a new chance to build a relationship of some kind with her. And that, quite simply, is why it is impossible.

A proposal to make the JJJ hottest 100 more inclusive

2009-01-26T21:35:00.007+11:00

The rules used for calculating the triple J hottest 100 directly lead to results which are not as inclusive as they could be and don't actually reflect what people are doing when they vote for best song. In particular, I would contend that voters in the JJJ hottest 100 vote for artists, rather than particular songs.

This is why the 2009 hottest 100 had a top 10 song list which only included 7 artists. That was a good result for big fans of MGMT, The PreSets and The Kings Of Leon but was very anti-climatic for the rest of the population - especially for those fans of the 3 bands that just missed the top 10 (Ladyhawke, PNAU and The Herd).

Given that people actually do seem to block vote for their favourite artist, rather than favourite songs, I think a much better system would be one that did the following:

allowed people to register votes for their top 10 artists
for each artist, allow a small number of songs to be voted for.

To produce a ranking, the top 100+N songs would used to select the top 100 artists, but each artist would appear at most once in the list in the order of their most popular song.

This will improve the diversity of the list and make the top-10 countdown genuinely entertaining, rather than the anti-climax it is now.

On The Definition of Atheism

2009-01-07T02:00:00.004+11:00

A couple of Cameron Reilly's recent blog posts have argued that critics of atheists have it all wrong when they claim that atheism implies a belief in the non-existence of gods. He makes the distinction between the position of being against the belief in the existence of gods and the position of believing that gods do not exist.

As a self-described atheist myself, I don't really see the point in making this distinction. The main reason is that I don't believe that any useful argument that an atheist can advance in support of a philosophical or political position depends on the distinction being valid. Furthermore, if there was such an argument, then it is vulnerable to any demonstration that there really isn't any practical distinction between the two positions.

Reilly argues that a-theism means either not or against theism but excludes the other common interpretation of the prefix, that is to mean "without". The a- in a-sexual or a-political is certainly used in this way. The position described as against theism would more correctly be described as anti-theism, rather than a-theism.

If we do assume that a-theism means without theism then, in a strict technical sense, Reilly is correct to note that "without a belief in the existence of gods" is not technically the same as "with a belief in the non-existence of gods".

Reilly argues that this distinction is crucial. I claim that it is irrelevant or, more precisely, that the definition he would have us use for atheist doesn't allow us to clearly distinguish the atheist from the agnostic.

First, let's dispose of the trivial case: a person who has no concept of gods. This person is trivially an atheist in Reilly's sense because if one can't even conceive of the concept of gods, one can hardly hold a belief in their existence.

Let's now consider the more interesting case of two people, Peter and Paul for whom the following statements are true.

Peter does not believe in the existence of gods
Peter does believe in the non-existence of gods
Paul does not believe in the existence of gods
Paul does not believe in the non-existence of gods

Peter and Paul are clearly different: Peter believes something that Paul does not. Furthermore, I think most people would agree that Peter is an atheist, whereas Paul is an agnostic, at least according to what I take to be the common uses of the terms.

In other words, I believe that being an atheist does actually entail a belief in the non-existence of gods and this is what distinguishes an atheist from an agnostic.

However, I don't share Reilly's fear that this is something to be concerned about. It really doesn't matter that atheists hold negative beliefs. This doesn't legitimise belief in gods anymore than believing in the non-existence of teapots on Mars legitimises a belief in the existence of teapots on Mars (to use Dawkin's example).

To be worried about that, confuses believing with knowing, a point that Stephen Pinker made in a different context in his book: "The Stuff Of Thought". To state that someone believes something doesn't make a statement about the world outside - it is simply a statement about the believer. The state of the world outside is unaffected by how many people hold deluded beliefs about the nature of reality. So, it really doesn't matter that an atheist's convictions are just beliefs - nothing significant can be derived from that admission.

Assertions of knowing something are quite different. Such statements are claims, not only about the knower's beliefs about the world outside, but also that the world outside conforms to those beliefs.

And this is why it is crucial to put believing in its place and distinguish it from knowing. Many theistic believers claim to know things because they have faith in the truth of their beliefs. Atheists claim to know things because they have the scientific method and reason. And this is precisely why atheism is superior to theism in its various forms - it provides objective methods for deciding the truth of claims of knowledge which are independent of the beliefs themselves, whereas theism is trapped inside circular definitions of belief and faith that never usefully connect with the real world.

The dangers of GPS-enabled social networking apps

2009-01-03T17:57:00.004+11:00

I recently purchased an iPhone 3G and have been enjoying using it immensely - it is definitely my kind of device. I love the e-mail and twitter integration, the zoom-able web browsing and the ability to read PDFs on a small form factor device. The playback video quality is excellent and the speaker means I don't have to risk strangulation with the earphone cord if I go to sleep with them in my ears. The integrated GPS and Google maps with street view is fantastic.

The GPS-aware dating apps sounded like a fun idea, so I downloaded "Who's Here". It seems like quite a fun, if slightly dangerous, way to meet strangers who might be nearby and interested in meeting up. "Who's Here" only gives an approximate distance to people in the neighbourhood, rather than an absolute position and so one might think that one is relatively unlocatable and hence safe. However, this assumes too much as will be explained later.

However, today, I came across BrightKite. BrightKite is an application that allows one to post one's current location to Twitter as well as to BrightKite's own tracking database. I signed up and installed the app to see what it was about and was astonished at how much information it keeps. Not only does it display your current absolute location (if you volunteer it via a check-in process), it records a history of all previous check-ins.

Using this information, I was able to discover who else had been near to my location in the previous few months. One of these people was a woman and by displaying her profile I could see where she had been over the previous few months.

The mind boggles at the safety risk this presents. A determined rapist would no doubt find such information very useful for finding vulnerable targets to attack, yielding as it does a detailed sketch of people's patterns of movement over an extended period of time.

Perhaps BrightKite can safely be used by travelers who never retrace their own steps, but it seems like anyone else is unnecessarily exposing themselves to stalking risk, particularly if they are in someway attractive to would be stalkers.

A note about the "safety" of "Who's Here".

On first glance, "Who's Here" appears to be safer than BrightKite because it only reveals a fuzzy distance between the current location of the observer and the observed. However, this isn't really fantastic protection because using triangulation techniques and observations taken from 3 different locations, an observer can pretty quickly locate with great accuracy a stationary observed person. The observed distances are themselves meant to be fuzzified to prevent triangulation working, however, it would be extremely surprising if the law of averages didn't ultimately work in the observer's favour.

The best way to eliminate the stalking risk such apps present would be to avoid using apps that reveal location data to unauthorised users. If you choose to use such apps, it would be best to minimize the time windows in which you make that information available to strangers (that is: make use of Who's Here's "sign-off" function) and avoid using it in places where you are commonly found.

Anyone who has questions about the issues documented here may direct them to me via e-mail to jon.seymour at gmail.com

A good lost thing story

2008-11-20T00:18:00.005+11:00

At around lunchtime today I realised I had lost my keys!

Bollocks!

I rang the bus company, I visited the City Rail lost property website, I visited the front desk and facilities management. Nothing.

Then I remembered that REMO had given me a key tag with a unique number on it. So, I gave them a call. Sure enough, Mel from R-eh-mo (I always thought it was R-ee-mo) said that a guy called Shane from Mount Druitt had called to report that he had found my keys on a train.

So I gave Shane's wife a call, got Shane's number, had a chat and we worked out that he could leave them at the station master's office at Granville. I took an early mark from work, caught a taxi to Granville, and retrieved my keys.

Is that not totally excellent? Thank you, Shane! Thank you, REMO!

A certain chronological symmetry

2008-09-27T18:20:00.005+10:00

On paper there is nothing special about this particular AFL grand final Saturday. It was a delightful spring day in Sydney, but we are fortunate to be blessed with many of those.

Today is special in my mind because this weekend resonates with a certain symmetry, and I can't help noticing the symmetrical.

12 years ago, I spent the most blissful weekend of my life with the one who should be forgotten. 6 years ago, I spent a rather miserable weekend contemplating the news I learned the day before that she had married 6 months previously.

Today I am as far away in time from the nadir of my emotional life as the nadir was from the zenith. Emotionally, I am roughly half way between both places.

Misplaced phone

2008-06-04T20:43:00.002+10:00

I recently "lost" my mobile phone.

The phone was a Nokia 6300, IMEI number 354189025044697.

Anyone who finds this phone may wish to contact me.

jon.

Born Negotiator

2008-01-15T19:57:00.000+11:00

This is a delightful true story, told to me at lunch by a colleague, about his child. I have transcribed it without his permission in the hope that this will inspire him to write up his own version which will inevitably be much, much better. Jireh, consider the gauntlet thrown...

His little girl found a small chocolate bar in the car and asked her dad if she could eat it.

He replied, that no, she couldn't eat it now but she could have half of it after dinner.

But only if she ate all her dinner and sat at table when asked.

Dad: Do you understand?

Little Girl: Yes.

Dad: You understand that you can have half the chocolate bar after you eat dinner, but only if you eat all your dinner and sit at the table when asked?

LG: Yes

Dad: Are you sure understand that you can have half the chocolate bar after you eat dinner, but only if you eat all your dinner and sit at the table when asked?

LG: Yes.

Dad: Ok. That's settled.

LG: Daddy?

Dad: Yes?

LG: Can I have the other half now?

Return from Melbourne

2008-01-11T18:35:00.000+11:00

I sat in the taxi with the afternoon sun in my eyes. As it moved slowly down Collins St on the way to the freeway and thence the airport, I looked across at the passing pedestrians. I certainly didn't expect to see her visage again and nor did I. Just another one of those minuscule disappointments that I manage to inflict upon myself now and then. Such is life.

Wrong way, go back: Conroy takes poor approach to filtering porn

2008-01-01T01:42:00.000+11:00

I am deeply concerned about the proposal of the Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, to impose mandatory filtering responsibilities on internet service providers in an attempt to restrict children's access to pornography. I write as one with some technical literacy in these matters and no financial interest in the ISP industry.

In his announcement Senator Conroy stated that under the proposed laws all residential and school internet feeds would be clean by default and anyone wishing to have unrestricted access would have to negotiate an opt-out with their service provider. Presumably this will be achieved by ticking the box requesting a smutty feed.

Senator Conroy claimed that "if people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree". In doing so, Senator Conroy has attempted to smear any opponent of his plan as an advocate of free access to child pornography. This is deeply offensive and he should withdraw or clarify his statement immediately.

While I understand the Government's desire to support parents in their struggle to shield children from unsavoury web content, the proposed solution is a very poor way of going about it. Filtering at the ISP level will be utterly ineffective at preventing curious young minds from seeking access to pornography, and it will necessarily wind back some of the so-called speed advantages of the promised broadband revolution. What the Government gives with one hand it takes away with another. The unusual aspect of this decision is that both hands belong to the same minister.

Incidental users of the internet are highly unlikely to be confronted by extremely graphic pornography, especially child pornography, unless they actively go looking for it. But filtering at the ISP level will not stop determined consumers of pornography from obtaining it because of the numerous ways of subverting filters. It is not just a joke that it was once said "the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it". It is a simple fact of the technology that cannot be avoided.

By advocating such a policy, an immature Government that promised a broadband revolution makes itself look foolish. It betrays a profound lack of understanding of the technology it seeks to promote.

SMH Letters/2008/01/01

Jon's Christmas...

2007-12-23T11:45:00.000+11:00

Season's Greetings to The Local Malcontent who asked me to do this...

1. Wrapping or gift bags?

Wrapping.

2. Real or artificial tree?

Tree? What tree?

3. When do you put up the tree?

I don't.

4. When do you take the tree down?

I don't.

5. Do you like eggnog?

Not sure I have ever been offered it, but I suspect not.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?

Can't remember. Was always happy with whatever I received.

7. Do you have a nativity scene?

No.

8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?

Packet of Coco Pops from my Dad when I had just moved into a share house [ oh so cool! ] He got such a good reaction from me, that I got it next year as well.

9. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards?

E-mail, if at all.

10. Favorite Christmas movie?

The one without the Christmas theme.

11. When do you start shopping for Christmas?

Not long before I finish.

12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?

Plum pudding.

13. Clear lights or colored on the tree?

If I had a tree, coloured.

14. Favorite Christmas song?

Silent night.

15. Travel at Christmas or stay home?

Visit relatives, locally.

16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?

Not without Google.

17. Angel on the tree top or a star?

If I had a tree, a star.

18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning?

Morning. Well, afternoon. Having just read this never on Christmas Evening!

19. Most annoying thing about this time of year?

That it starts in early November.

20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color?

Are there black Christmas decorations?

21. What do you leave for Santa?

Nothing.

22. Least favorite holiday song?

Anything played in a shopping mall.

23. Favorite ornament?

Those round glass things.

The next thing?

2007-12-08T17:32:00.000+11:00

Possibly. Enough said.

The turbulence subsides...

2007-12-01T21:52:00.000+11:00

It has been an unexpectedly turbulent year.

First, there was the discovery of a thread on the web that lead eventually and haphazardly to the news that she is now a mum. Then, there was her surprise appearance on the other side of an invisible wall in Sydney, 6 weeks ago. Both things caused more than a few ripples in my world.

However, as the distance from those events has increased, the turbulence has subsided and life has returned to normal once more.

I suspect the story isn't quite over yet and I'll stumble into another emotional storm. Who knows how? Who knows when?

Time now, however, to enjoy other things.

Permanence

2007-11-28T20:54:00.000+11:00

Part of the reason I have nothing, is that I needed permanence, I needed security. She couldn't offer me that.

The ironic thing is - I actually have attained a state of permanence.

My "relationship" with her is eternal, immortal.

It's fucked.

But, it'll never change.

Computer says....

2007-11-24T21:33:00.000+11:00

YES!!!!

Control

2007-11-22T01:12:00.001+11:00

My past is my future
And my present is out of control.

I saw this film today. Brilliant film. Tragic story, but a brilliant, beautiful film. The weaving of the songs with the narrative is masterful.

Wandering the plains...

2007-11-10T19:57:00.000+11:00

In a previous post, I wrote that I believed that she held a key which could unlock a state of permanent bliss, a key forever beyond my reach.

Musing about this since, I have come to the conclusion that's not an authentic statement of what I believe - it's too absolute, too universal, too eternal.

I do believe that she could unlock a state of temporary bliss. I know that. She did it before and she could, at least in principle, do it again. But it wouldn't be a permanent state.

I've come down from that high once. One descent was definitely enough. I am still in awe of that mountain, but I won't be climbing it again.

A brief flicker of rage...

2007-11-09T17:58:00.000+11:00

Her appearance in my dream last night was very brief.

She was leaning on her hands, on the bed, next to me. Not a completely unwelcome image to savour, but my joy was tempered by her state - she was shaking with rage. It seems she had just read my blog and was pissed off by what she had read.

She was about to explain her thoughts when the illusion was shattered.

The fundamental delusion

2007-11-05T17:06:00.000+11:00

If I didn't believe it, it wouldn't be a delusion.

The fundamental delusion, I think, is this: the unshakeable belief that she holds a magic key that would unlock a state of permanent bliss.

I know that the key is forever beyond my reach.

What I can't shake is the belief that the key exists and that, if I could grasp it, I would be in nirvana.

The ghastly thing is that my alienation from her serves only to reinforce the delusion. The invisible wall feels so real. If there is nothing to desire, why does the wall exist? Its very existence seems proof that I am being denied access to something real.

I sometimes flirt with the idea that we could somehow have a normal friendship. It'd be nice to be able to remove her from the pedestal upon which I have placed her and see her as a normal person with all her charms and flaws, to deal with the reality of her husband and their child.

But I just can't imagine how that could ever happen. She'd have to want to offer it to me, and that would take a gigantic and unjustified leap of faith in me for her to do that. Why would she risk getting entangled with me again?

No reason.

Of course, I could not help but fall in love with the generosity of spirit that would be required to take that risk, thereby justifying the fears that would prevent it from being taken in the first place.

And so the tragic wheel continues to spin - proving that, in the universe of emotion, there is no second law of thermodynamics.

Burying the relationship

2007-10-30T06:39:00.000+11:00

I think part of the reason I devalued the importance of the relationship itself is that, on most objective terms, it always was a stinker. There were so many things wrong with it.

It began while we were working on the same project in Melbourne. Of course, this meant that it was conducted in secret. Worse, it occurred while she was still living with her soon to be ex-boyfriend and I was still dealing with my feelings for my previous entanglement. It heated up quickly then cooled off again almost as quickly when I returned to Sydney at the end of the project.

Intense? Yes. Robust? No. Tempestuous? Yes. Doomed to failure? Almost certainly.

I ignored all these things. I was fascinated by her - addicted to her as surely as to any drug.

I don't regret what happened next. The prize on offer was so glittering, I had to take the chance. What I didn't realize was how thoroughly hooked I would become.

Only too late did I realise I had no exit strategy.

On category errors and delusions

2007-10-29T17:15:00.000+11:00

We had a relationship of sorts. It was hard and brittle. It broke.

Obviously, I am deluded about something.

Not so clear is exactly what I am deluded about.

On the surface, at least, I accept that my relationship with her disintegrated long ago and there is no hope of repairing it.

Yet, even though I know that, I can't shake my desire for her.

Why? Why do I persist in desiring a person that has no desire for me?

Perhaps part of the reason is that I have been committing category errors - I have been attributing to her, qualities that were actually properties of our relationship.

So, for example, I loved her for responding to my desire. Instead of regarding that response as a property of our relationship, I regarded it as intrinsic to her.

In this mindset, when the relationship withered, nothing important disappeared because all the important things were intrinsic to either herself or me.

This undervaluing of the relationship probably explains why I was never able to accept her desire to be just friends. If I had placed more value on the relationship as distinct from the person at the other end of it, perhaps the relationship would have survived, or at least, been given a decent burial.

A false trichotomy

2007-10-28T23:19:00.000+11:00

Her. Something else. Or, nothing.

That trichotomy is, of course, false.

There is something else or there is nothing.

That is all.

Thus far, the something else has turned out to resemble something very close to the inverse of her.

The last apparently nice thing she did for me was nearly 9 years ago. She called me to say farewell, prior to one year overseas. I guess it was better than leaving without saying goodbye. She saved that (non-)act for one year later when she resigned from our mutual employer.

The last compassionate thing she did was, 5 years ago, when she sent me a note informing me in 11 short words of her marriage 6 months previously. It wasn't particularly pleasant news, but I do recognize she told me because she thought it might help me let go. That I didn't is my bad.

The fact that this barren reality has barely dimmed my desire for her is testament to the intensity of the core experience which is the foundation of my obsession - a wonderful weekend of intimacy. We didn't have sex - we never had sex. But we did spend a very fine weekend getting to know each other, most of it in bed.

That experience remains the most complete mind fuck of my life.

Mammal @ Candy's

2007-10-27T03:06:00.000+10:00

So, I danced again.

You just have to see Mammal live - these guys are easily the best live act I have ever seen.

Amazing.

Some old words and some new

2007-10-23T13:02:00.000+10:00

She is not my friend
She is not my enemy
She is not the one

I was never completely at one with her
I will never be at war with her
But, I am not quite yet at peace with her

One battle too many against a phantom

2007-10-22T21:10:00.000+10:00

The problem with conceptualising my situation as a contest of wills with her is that it assumes that from her point of view she is expending emotional effort to resist me. That she is denying me access to something that exists and that would fulfill my desire, if only she would grant me access to it.

I think what I haven't properly internalized is that there really is *nothing* there to desire. It's not just she is denying me access to it - there *really* is nothing there.

I think I know why I make that basic psychological mistake - it was (apparently) there before. Surely, it is there now?

That's why my desire for her is different to a desire for Salma Hayek - Salma never had a thing for me.

Now, I can tell myself that she has nothing for me, but I think that subconsciously I have never really accepted that.

Of course, that has to change.

A contest of wills?

2007-10-21T13:17:00.001+10:00

In recent posts I have expressed scepticism that I can fix my problem with will power. The basic problem is that it is really hard not think of pink elephants when asked not to.

We are both locked in a contest of wills: she refuses to give me anything and I refuse to give up. More particularly, I refuse to give up my desire - I gave up any expectation of realising my desires long ago.

Releasing the expectations had the beneficial effect of eliminating conflict between us - I kept out of her way. But I do think that it had the paradoxical effect of wrapping the desires in a cocoon where they became insulated from the hard knocks of reality.

Why do I hold so strongly onto desires that are unrealisable? Why can't I give these up too? I don't really know the answer to that.

Perhaps I should try to find out.

15 seconds

2007-10-20T15:32:00.000+10:00

4 days later, those 15 seconds seem a long time ago.

As I walked from the hotel where my classes had been in the morning to the lunch area in the main building, I was paying attention to people coming the other way, just in case she was one of them. As I boarded the escalator I looked up to see her boarding at the top. She appeared to be rubbing moisturiser into her arms as she looked at nothing in particular, absorbed in some thought.

My reaction was a visceral one. There before me was a sight that I had longed to see for years with no expectation that I ever would. A sight that seemed so familiar. Here she was again, this time from a slightly different perspective from the ones I had seen her in the day before. Each perspective, like a different phase of the moon. I remember that look, I thought to myself. In that moment I knew exactly why I haven't been able to let go.

My stomach churned, on the one hand I was delighted to see her again, on the other I was painfully aware that she probably didn't want to see me. But I couldn't bring myself to pretend I hadn't seen her. Nor could I bring myself to call out a full throated hello. So a quiet "Hi!" escaped my lips as we passed each other. I wasn't looking directly at her, but I got the impression that she was trying to look anywhere but in my direction. My heart sank. How had it come to this?

She disappeared behind me. I don't think I even looked around to catch a last glimpse.

The next day, I decided to avoid the main building altogether and lunched at home instead. I pondered whether I should go to the night's social event. If she was there it would be awkward and distinctly un-enjoyable for me to be so close, yet so far. On the other hand, I figured that since she was quite unlikely to attend, I may as well go and enjoy myself. I was right, she didn't attend and the evening turned out to be good fun, the highlight of which was an amazing magician called Phil Cass.

Writing oneself into letting go - I don't think so

2007-10-20T13:54:00.000+10:00

During a good discussion last night with a couple of my friends about the way I am choosing to deal with this we covered some of the ground of recent posts. In particular, we discussed the pros and cons of such public introspection. If anything, I became more convinced that it has more benefits than costs. One friend agreed that the act of writing does influence how one thinks about things. He asked me to consider whether I could write myself into a decision to let go.

This is an interesting question but at present, I am somewhat sceptical about this being possible. The problem is that once I have let go, writing anything at all ceases to make sense. It seems unlikely that one could write something so convincing that all further writing becomes pointless.

I know I can't write myself towards my desired state - reconciliation with her. I think writing does help to moderate my emotions towards a stable, if not particularly desirable state. I just don't think I can get to an emotionally empty state which is what letting go looks like from here.

Yes, people will tell me that in that state I will be free to enjoy other things in life. There is a point to that, well illustrated by "The Cat Empire" gig I went to on Tuesday.

The Cat Empire have a very energetic style of music and performance. The Metro was packed and everyone - and I mean everyone, was bouncing up and down to the music like there was no tomorrow. Introspective little me didn't actually feel like dancing so I went and stood against a wall so that I wouldn't get jumped on and observed the concert from there while I reflected on the day's events. It must have looked strange to those around me, but not dancing by the side wall seemed less obvious than not dancing in the mosh pit.

But that was Tuesday, near the centre of a recent storm. I know I will get past that and I will dance again - probably as soon as next Friday at the Mammal gig - "Hell Yeah!"

Duck, Beer!

2007-10-20T13:06:00.000+10:00

I spent a very enjoyable night last night celebrating two friends' engagement while drinking beers at the Opera Bar. Since I had only just started draining an Asahi when everyone decided to leave, I decided that rather than scull the beer I would put it into the pocket of my jacket.

I was reminded of it later on when I stepped off a step and the beer splashed down the inside of my jacket. This was quite an odd sensation. I took a mental note that I needed to remember not to throw my coat onto the couch when I got home.

After the cab ride home, I bid farewell to my friends with talk of plans to visit an Austrian schnitzel place in Gladesville with a mutual friend at some point in the near future. I inquired as to whether there would be Beer Duck at this place, a reference to a legendary evening in Melbourne last year where an attempt was made to consume a duck curry with a sauce so hot that mere contemplation of its consumption required alcoholic fortification - hence the name Beer Duck. I was assured that this was unlikely.

Thus comforted, I returned to my apartment and as I bent down to unlatch the securing bolt at the base of my front door, the beer promptly poured itself all over my front step - Duck, Beer!

Introspecting about introspection

2007-10-19T18:10:00.001+10:00

The topic of whether or not she reads this blog came up with a friend today. As far as I can tell she doesn't but I actually don't know. My friend expressed horror - how much more awkward do I make things by writing this stuff in a forum she could, in principle, read.

Personally, I don't think this really matters much. This blog makes absolutely no difference to the quality of my relationship with her - its been beyond stuffed for way longer than I have been blogging about it.

However, his questions lead me to think about the reasons I blog this stuff in such a public forum. Why do I do it? This is actually quite an intriguing question for me. There are some simple answers, but the more I think about it, the more complex the answer becomes.

One simple answer is that it acts as a release valve. Instead of obsessing about a communication I'd like to write her, a communication that I can't send because to do so would constitute unwelcome harassment, I write it here. I am pretty sure she would prefer that I didn't write these things in this forum, but quite frankly this is really more about my reaction to her than it is about her, so my willingness to care about this is fairly low. Is it still harassment if I write it here? I don't think so - I am not asking her to read this stuff and if she doesn't want to read it, then she can remain blissfully unaware of it. Also, since we have very few mutual acquaintances, the chance that someone will bring up my posts in conversation with her are somewhat remote.

It is true, however, that I want her to read this stuff. I'd like her to know what I am thinking. I'd prefer that she knows what my actual feelings are rather than hiding behind a pretence that I am somehow over her. I am not over her, and probably never will be. Better she knows that, I think, than to lie about it.

My thoughts are literally a conversation with the world outside trying to explain, and perhaps justify, why I think like I do. In explaining it to the world, perhaps I will better explain it to myself.

These posts are, in my opinion, brutally honest about what I think. This is somewhat ugly and some might say undignified. While this is true, I don't care about this either. In a sense, these posts help me set boundaries for where my feelings and thoughts go. Thinking in public helps ensure that I don't stray too far from socially acceptable positions.

The Last Day of Our Acquaintance

2007-10-18T08:47:00.000+10:00

The conference is over for me, so it seems somewhat fitting that my final image of her will be that of Tuesday when we passed, almost silently, on opposing escalators.

I can't say it better than Sinead O'Connor, in her song "The Last Day Of Our Acquaintance":

This is the last day of our acquaintance
I will meet you later in somebody's office
I'll talk but you won't listen to me
I know what your answer will be
I know you don't love me anymore
You used to hold my hand when the plane took off
Two years ago there just seemed so much more
And I don't know what happened to our love
Today's the day
Our friendship has been stale
And we will meet later to finalize the details
Two years ago the seed was planted
And since then you have taken me for granted
But this is the last day of our acquaintance
I will meet you later in somebody's office
I'll talk but you won't listen to me
I know your answer already
But this is the last day of our acquaintance
I will meet you later in somebody's office
I'll talk but you won't listen to me
I know your answer already
I know your answer already
I know your answer already

postscript: It is perhaps apt to note that this song appears on the album "I do not want what I haven't got".

Now there's a thought.

In response to The Other One

2007-10-16T18:33:00.000+10:00

Until Monday, I hadn't seen her for over 9 years. Then on Monday she appeared at a conference run by my employer. Presumably, she'll return to Melbourne on Thursday and then the chance of an accidental crossing of paths will be much reduced.

I am obsessed with her and we both know it. A long time ago, she tried to let me down gently but at some point decided to just ignore me.

In purely rational terms, I understand why she had to do that and I know that if I was in her shoes, I'd do exactly the same thing.

But understanding it rationally doesn't make my feelings go away. They just are. And, as far as I can tell, always will be.

In the interest of maintaining a shred of dignity, I do try very hard not to impose myself upon her. I haven't managed to do that perfectly, but all things considered I think I have done it pretty well. Blogging helps, since I can write things here that may otherwise have ended up in a pointless e-mail to her.

I think the sad truth is that she is afraid of my obsession for her. Given the strength of my feelings, I really can't blame her. Stating this so bluntly sounds like a threat but this couldn't be further from the truth. I bear no malice or jealousy for her or her husband. At one level I do accept that it is over.

Yet, the feelings remain.

I wish we could talk to clear the air, but if I am honest I know talk wouldn't solve anything. She has absolutely no place in her heart for me and if there is one silver lining of these past few days, at least it is now screamingly obvious.

Perhaps the sheer physical reality of her rejection of me will knock my rose-coloured glasses off and help me let go. One could hope. But the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I caught sight of her today tells me otherwise.

Intense. That was her word for what we once had. Alienation is my word for what remains.

Acting like strangers

2007-10-16T14:28:00.000+10:00

On my way up to Level 10 @ lunch today, I passed her on the escalator going the other way. I let out a kind of strangled "Hi!", not wishing to make a scene but not wishing to maintain the pretence that I hadn't noticed her.

I think she looked up but I got the impression that she was deliberately avoiding eye contact with me, but I don't know that for sure. I think it is a reasonable assumption that she was avoiding the common areas at lunch so as to minimize the chance of running in to me. If that is what she was doing, I understand.

I think I know why she has to treat me like a stranger. We are, after all, strangers.

And yet, it hurts. It just seems so unfair that we have to be strangers.

Of course, that is just from my view point. From hers, it is unfair that I don't let go. I want to empathise with her, I want to understand things from her point of view. I want her to explain it to me. But an explanation requires communication and communication requires more intimacy than she is prepared to grant me. So I am left to infer her attitudes towards me from the way she treats me. It's pretty clear - she wants nothing to do with me.

I know I can't change this, but it stinks just the same.

The Unexpected

2007-10-15T12:55:00.000+10:00

I had always wondered what it would be like to bump into her again. I wondered if I'd recognize her. I wondered how she'd react. I wondered how I'd react.

So, now, quite unexpectedly, I know.

Attending a technical conference sponsored by my employer today, there she was.

I said hi, she replied. I expressed my surprise at seeing her and then moved away to regain my composure. I probably shouldn't have gone back to try to engage her in conversation because I knew that was doomed to failure. But, of course, I did. We exchanged pleasantaries again, but the awkwardness of the situation made further conversation impossible for her and for me. So I said my goodbyes and walked away - for the last time.

There is an invisible wall between myself and her. All there is left for me to do is ponder the question: what colour should I paint it?

A better mousetrap

2007-10-04T09:55:00.001+10:00

The other one is right, of course, to caution about premature fixation.

I have always thought fixation is like a mouse trap. It has both a triggering mechanism and an arm of destruction.

The trick with mouse traps is to make sure that the triggering mechanism is sensitive, but not too sensitive. The other trick is to have an efficient re-arming mechanism.

If fixation is like a mouse trap, then mine has a somewhat erratic trigger and is a complete bugger to re-arm.

The fascinating mystery of it all

2007-10-03T15:07:00.000+10:00

Above all else she was, and no doubt still is, a deeply fascinating person.

Everything about her fascinated me. I had no idea what made her tick, but I was prepared to spend a life time finding out. There seemed no better way to spend a life.

I think part of the reason I still think about her is that I was never cured of my curiousity about her. She was mysterious from the day I met her, grew more mysterious the closer I got and remains mysterious now that she has gone.

So, I guess I shouldn't complain - it seems the mystery I craved will remain forever unsolved, forever a mystery.

A slice of APEC - Bush departs a deserted city

2007-09-08T23:00:00.000+10:00

I didn't actually make it to the protest rally today. I thought I was going to be able to because my only available climbing partner had pulled out with a virus. Unfortunately, when I woke up on Saturday morning. I had a nasty headache and was feeling generally unwell myself, so I tried to get to some more sleep. I didn't rise until later in the afternoon. I was pleased to read the protest went off without any substantial incident.

Later in the day I grabbed my copy of Joe Simpson's book "The Beckoning Silence" and headed down to Stanley St for my usual coffee, mineral water and focaccia, thinking that I'd catch "The Simpsons" movie (no relation!) at 20:50. I was amused by Simpson's rating system for ice climbs, based on the emotional state of the climber attempting it. The 7 grades labelled this way are: bored, intrigued, absorbed, alarmed, horrified, mentally certified, dead.

It turns out I had misread the movie guide and "The Simpsons" wasn't actually on at that time in the city. With nothing better to do I decided to catch the Presidential motorcade as it left town. Not that I am fan of the President, mind you, but Presidential motorcades are pretty impressive projections of power whatever you think about the monkey in the back seat.

I ended up at the corner of Macquarie and Bent Streets. There were perhaps 20 police in small groups and perhaps 6 or 7 spectators including myself. The police weren't particularly interested in me or any of the others. One guy seemed to be a chef from a nearby restaurant, the other 5 were well-to-do types who presumably were there to wave goodbye to their hero and then there was me, a Bush loather, in their midst.

There was a little bit of excitement as the water cannon and some other police vehicles drove down Macquarie Street. About 15 minutes later the team of 4 leap-frogging police motorcyclists announced the arrival of the President and his convoy of vehicles. I did want to take a video of it, but my phone's batteries were low, so I had to ditch that plan.

The group of 5 waved and cheered as the two Presidential limousines turned onto the freeway. With my phone camera useless, I just stood there with my arms folded hoping that idle Presidential eyes would read the contempt of my gesture, but realising that there is no possible way the contempt of a lone individual could pierce the psyche of a man who has done such damage to the reputation of his country and the lives of millions of Iraqis.

As I wandered back home through the near-deserted streets of the city, I thought that the Australian Tourism Commission should film another ad. Picture an overseas tourist, standing alone in the empty streets of Australia's largest city, screaming out at the top of her lungs: "Where the bloody hell are you?"

A vivid dream

2007-08-10T20:00:00.000+10:00

I think about her everyday. Sometimes its only a brief thought which I dismiss easily. Sometimes, the thoughts linger longer.

She only rarely visits me in my dreams, so it is surprising when she does.

She visited me last night. At first, I wasn't sure that she recognized me so I started to say something. She smiled me back into silence.

We started to talk, but then she had to leave. She seemed to suggest I should follow, and so I turned around to pick something up. When I turned around again she was gone. I realised that there was only one thing left to do.

I woke up.

Andrews caught in a quantum superposition of truth states again

2007-08-05T15:08:00.000+10:00

Either Andrews is lying about facts on the public record, or he is incompetent. From today's Insiders:

BARRIE CASSIDY: Sure, but you still haven't addressed that issue. What do the police say to you about that? Is it unusual for somebody accused of having a link with terrorists to try to contact the police?

KEVIN ANDREWS: We don't know the full details about that contact and how that occurred or whether it occurred or not. All I'm saying to you is, I had a body of evidence provided to me...

The record of interview clearly shows that after Dr Haneef told police he had attempted to call Tony Webster in the UK, the police then obtained a list of the exact call times from some source. They, not Dr Haneef, read those times into the record of interview. For Andrews to state that this is not known, is an absurd denial of a fact that is clearly documented.

Given his bizarre statements of the last few days, I would not be surprised if Keelty comes out to bat for Andrews with another Rumsfeld-esque excursion into epistemology: "To say we know something, indeed, anything at all, now that is a big call."

Haneef's explanation for the "nothing has been found about you"

2007-08-01T23:33:00.000+10:00

In this report, Haneef claims that the statement "nothing has been found about you" was in reference to a BBC report. There is a report available on the BBC site dated July 1 that refers to a Liverpool arrest which may be the report Haneef is referring to.

Presumably Haneef's explanation is backed up by the record of the 2nd interview, otherwise he could be easily contradicted. It seems hard to believe that this could be a "just so" explanation since it is highly unlikely Dr Haneef had access to a web terminal to look up the corroborating BBC article in the time between being asked the question and offering an answer to the question - he was in detention, after all.

A roo caught in the headlights

2007-08-01T16:22:00.000+10:00

Kevin Andrews still hasn't produced any solid evidence that justifies why we should suspect Mohamed Haneef, as distinct from his cousins, of anything sinister.

What we have seen is evidence of a frightened man behaving like the proverbial roo frozen in the headlights. Except this roo had the presence of mind to step off the road for a second and make a call to authorities to ask if the headlights were really meant for him.

Kevin Andrews should resign, get out of the AFP's way and let them do their job properly. Refusing to do so, to protect John Howard's legacy, would appear to pose a serious risk to our national security.

Debugging Democracy

2007-08-01T10:14:00.001+10:00

Too cute by half.

One interesting thing in the Solicitor General's advice are the words:

"(his brother told him) ... not to let anyone else use his number in Australia or give it to anyone else"

What could be significant is that in the Solictor-General's advice these words were not quoted, indicating that they were a paraphrase of source material, rather than source material itself.

In some media this has been reported that he was advised he should not share his contact details. However, perhaps it is actually a paraphrase of advice not to give his phone or SIM to anyone.

Evidence in support of this interpretation is that it was not advice for Haneef to not use his own number. It was advice to not allow others to use it or possess it.

Sounds to me more like reasonable advice to give about a phone. Something along the lines of: "Haneef, you idiot, whatever you do this time, don't give your phone away!"

Yet, this is not how the paraphrase read. The paraphrase sounds like he is being warned to maintain radio silence, so to speak. But even the paraphrase doesn't actually say that. Yet, the public was invited to form a conclusion that something about his brother's advice in this case was suspicious.

This raises big questions about whether the Government is playing fast and loose with facts in its possession.

I am not claiming I know what the actual words were. I am claiming there is sufficient reason to doubt the Government's interpretation of the source material and this is very good reason for the Government to be more transparent in its presentation of so-called evidence.

I encourage everyone who reads this note and cares about the presumption of innocence and abuse of executive power to circulate this note to others of similar mind.

Let's see a little viral democracy in action.

No Smoking Gun

2007-07-31T23:34:00.000+10:00

Well, that was Andrews' last shot. Apparently, it was the best he had.

Let's look at what he had:

information that was available to the prosecutor who decided there was no case to answer
highly selective and suggestive quotations, presented outside of the context in which they occurred
evidence of Dr Haneef wanting to flee on July 2.
highly questionable paraphrasing of source material

Perhaps as revealing is what we haven't seen:

the full context of the excerpts he used
Dr Haneef's explanations for these conversations
any evidence that Dr Haneef knew of his cousins involvement in a plot prior to July 2
a persuasive argument for why it was necessary to truncate Dr Haneef's presumption of innocence by cancelling Dr Haneef's visa within hours of favourable bail decision being granted.

Andrews' claims that the pretext of wanting to visit his wife and child was a false pretext and this implied he had prior knowledge of the plot. He gives no weight at all to the possibility that Dr Haneef's actions on July 2 were consistent both with a desire to see his family and the fear of being wrongfully being persecuted as a terrorist, fears that appear quite rational given the subsequent events.

Questions For Kevin Andrews

2007-07-31T22:23:00.000+10:00

do the authorities possess any material which shows that Dr Haneef had near-term plans to return to India prior to July 1, 2007?
will you release the transcript of the 2nd police interview?
do the police have transcripts of voice calls or online chats for periods prior to bombing?
if so, do any of these transcripts contain material that suggest Dr Haneef knew of the plot?
was Dr Haneef questioned by police about the quotes you have used?
what were his responses?
will you release the full transcript of the chat room conversations?

The absurdist magician waves his magic wand again

2007-07-31T10:44:00.000+10:00

On Tuesday, Kevin Andrews stated:

This process has been overseen by the judiciary at every step. The investigation and the timing of it, the amount of time that people could question Dr Haneef was all under the direction of a magistrate. Secondly, there was a bail hearing in which the magistrate made a decision. And thirdly, the director of public prosecutions personally reviews the whole case. There's been a review of this process all the way through.

Having distorted facts (age of baby), contorted facts (prompt departure), the magician is now making facts disappear. The keen observer will note that between his helpfully numbered second and third points Andrews manages to completely elide his exercise of arbitrary executive power that subverted the magistrate's bail decision and truncated Dr Haneef's presumption of innocence.

I now fully expect to see a naked Kevin Andrews conduct a future press conference supremely confident that his masterful cloaking spell will protect his modesty.

Adopting Alexander Downer's excellent suggestion

2007-07-30T23:53:00.000+10:00

In this age of unnecessary wars against the UN-funded clients of our wheat farmers, it is entirely understandable that we need strong anti-terrorism laws. What has yet to be adequately explained by the proponents of these laws is why the Australian people need to delegate the function of performing character assessments of our guests to a posse of vindicative witch-burners whose ability to observe facts, let alone logically reason about them, is severely and suspiciously deficient.

However, if we must, in the name of national security, accept this debased state of affairs, why can't we also adopt Alexander Downer's excellent suggestion and witness the occasional apology complete with "falling on the ground...grovelling, eating dirt"?

Taking some pleasure from Rudd's utter lack of principle

2007-07-29T19:24:00.002+10:00

Much as I am disgusted by Kevin Rudd's utter lack of principle with respect to the Kevin Andrews visa cancellation decision, the vindicative bastard in me has to say, it does set Howard up for a deliciously ironic defeat.

Admittedly, it would be far better for the health of Australian democracy if a political leader could ride to victory on the back of a platform of solid moral principle. Unfortunately the Australian people get the political leaders we deserve and it appears we don't deserve anyone more principled than Kevin Rudd.

Yet, if Howard has to go down, then how appropriate that he should be brought to his knees by tactics worthy of his own brand of political bastardry.

As Alan Ramsay and Paul Kelly have pointed out, Rudd will not be wedged and it is driving Howard et al to dispair - witness Andrews ludicrous attacks on Rudd and Gillard for supporting the Howard government's own positions.

Good riddance, Johnny.

Witch burning repackaged

2007-07-29T17:30:00.000+10:00

It is somewhat fitting that our Minister for Immigration, Kevin Andrews, a man known for his deeply conservative, pro-family, Christian values, should be offering up a modern day example of that fine Christian practice - witch burning.

On Saturday, when asked whether he objected to Mohamed Haneef's decision to return to India to visit his mother, wife and new-born, Minister Andrews stated:

"After taking advice, including from the Australian Federal Police, I have indicated that the Commonwealth has no objection to Dr Haneef leaving Australia. Indeed the effect of the visa cancellation is that he should remove himself, he should depart Australia in any event." [ref]

Understandably, Minister Andrews did not find it appropriate to praise Dr Haneef for the concern he showed for his family, particularly his ailing mother who, it is said, has not taken this episode well. But in any event, the Minister was correct. Under the terms of the Australian law, Dr Haneef was obliged to depart Australia since his work visa had been cancelled. Admittedly, he is also entitled to stay around for the appeal, but that's a minor detail which a deeply embarassed minister of the crown, eager to see the back of Dr Haneef, might understandably neglect to mention.

Which leaves those of us who do not comprehend the complicated inner workings of the Christian moral calculus to ponder how it was that just a day later, Minister Andrews was able to state that Dr Haneef's departure "heightened, rather than lessened" his suspicions as to the correctness of his assessment of Dr Haneef's alleged bad character. [ref]

Either Dr Haneef's departure is evidence that Dr Haneef was respectfully observing the laws of the commonwealth, or it is evidence of his bad character - it can't be both.

Witch (sic) is it Minister?

An open letter to Kevin Andrews

2007-07-28T17:25:00.000+10:00

When considering whether to reverse your decision to cancel Dr Mohamed Haneef's visa I would implore you to give very serious consideration to the expectations of the Australian community.

The Australian community, I believe, is one that strongly believes in the notion of a fair go. A fair go is not a partisan concept. It is not a Liberal concept, it is not a Green concept it is not a Labor concept. It is an Australian concept that every man and woman on the street, Christian or Atheist, Muslim or Buddhist, understands.

By the dictates of this concept, you should strongly consider whether your original decision to preempt the outcome of his trial by cancelling his visa was fair. You should consider whether, in light of the complete collapse of the prosecution case against him, the cancellation is still fair.

If you can't find it within yourself to give Dr Haneef a fair go, consider whether it is fair to the base political objectives of your own side of politics to continue burdening it with a completely laughable position.

Once you have done this, please also give very serious consideration to the question of resigning your position as Minister and as Member of Parliament as a small gesture of apology to the Australian people for causing us such deep embarrassment.

Sir, I believe you have failed your character test and it only right that you correct your mistakes and then do the honourable thing and resign - Ian Campbell resigned for less, much less.

Your Sincerely,

Jon Seymour

Some advice for the Minister of Immigration

2007-07-28T10:14:00.001+10:00

According to Peter White's advice to the Minister of Immigration, dated 16th of July, it would appear the national interest test that the Minister is relying on the justify his decision to cancel Dr Mohamed Haneef's visa is the clause relating to the "expectations of the Australian community". In particular, the advice states:

"The Australian community may expect that a non-citizen who has had an association with persons suspected of involvement in an act of terrorism and who has been charged with an offence of providing resources to a terrorist organisation, including those persons, would have their visa cancelled"

I would have thought the expectation of the Australian community could be more succinctly expressed this way: "Give the bloke a fair go, you bastards".

Leunig gives us a history lesson...

2007-07-28T09:59:00.000+10:00

From this week's Age...

Still fuming at the spineless Labor party...

2007-07-27T09:00:00.000+10:00

Your editorial and Gerard Henderson's article ("Rudd won't escape Haneef fallout", July 24) highlight the problem with Kevin Rudd's me-too-ism. After watching Labor march lock step with the Government last week away from the presumption of innocence, I will no longer distribute my preference to Labor in the House of Representatives.

This may seem like a foolhardy thing to do given my distaste for the Government, however, given the alternative, does it really matter? For too long Labor has been taking support of progressively minded voters for granted. Perhaps Rudd thinks he doesn't need us this time. If so, he won't miss our vote.

I will still distribute my preferences to Labor in the Senate, but only because I think Labor's political cynicism can be relied upon to exert some measure of restraint over the Government should we find ourselves in the unfortunate circumstance of having to endure another three years of Liberal rule.

Letters, SMH, 27th July 2007

Labor should be held accountable for their part in the Haneef farce

2007-07-21T14:26:00.000+10:00

originally posted as a comment @ The Road To Surfdom

The Labor party needs to be held accountable for their part in this farce. What good is a briefing based on secret information if the AFP can’t even get the basics right with facts that are (or will shortly be) in the public domain.

Why should we trust that executive decisions based entirely on secret information will be any more soundly based than those based on public information when they can’t even get those right?

Kevin Andrews' action was a violation of the principle of natural justice unless he has very strong evidence that Haneef was part of a plot that represented an imminent danger to the Australian public. Nothing in the publicly available information suggests this is so.

If we trusted the executive to behave responsibly then we could perhaps put some weight on the so-called sensitive information. However, this government has long since lost the right to deserve that trust.

The Labor party was fundamentally wrong to endorse Minister Andrews' actions under a fully legal and fully draconian immigration law. They should have withheld judgment about the merits of Kevin Andrew’s claims of bad character until such time as they were substantiated with publicly available information. They certainly should not have endorsed the premature truncation of Haneef’s presumption of innocence. By law, and by the terms of natural justice, this can only occur when the accused is found guilty in a court of law - not before.

The Labor party was hoping to deny the Liberals a wedge issue so they abandoned the principle of presumption of innocence. Now that this case has descended into farce, they are left to wallow in the government’s cesspit and wonder about the what if’s of defending central principles of western jurisprudence and democracy.

Haneef case descends into farce

2007-07-21T08:39:00.000+10:00

As the Haneef case descends into farce, so passes a golden opportunity to drive the final nail into the coffin of an over-ripe corpse.

Had the Labor party acted with principle on this matter in the first place and refused to endorse the prejudicial actions of Kevin Andrews, the Labor party might have been in a fine position to make political capital out of this farce. For there is no crime, moral or otherwise, in making political capital out of farce.

It is, on the other hand, a sin against natural justice in using another's liberty as a pawn in a political game. Both the ALP and the Liberal Party are patently guilty of this sin.

The ALP can try to defend the moral high ground now, if they dare. Perhaps people won't notice the foul smelling mud dripping from their clothes.

Who needs the presumption of innocence when you can have guilt by association?

2007-07-19T23:14:00.001+10:00

I have been quite appalled by the Australian Labor Party's cowardly stance with respect to the Mohamed Haneef case in particular, and the question of Australia's draconian anti-terror laws in general.

Nothing that has been published, including the 142 page transcript of Haneef's first interview with police, lends any weight to the charge that this man is a terrorist who represents a danger to the Australian people. Yet his economic life has been destroyed and his liberty denied.

On the other hand, we are witnessing a government who is asserting its right to deny natural justice to whom ever it pleases in the name of political expediency. And worse, we have an Opposition which gladly connives with the government in the name of denying them a wedge issue.

These acts by our political leaders, not the passing of a SIM between family members in the dim-dark past, are a dire threat to Australia's democratic values.

Make no mistake. A firm wedge has been placed. It is a wedge between the political mainstream and questions of principle and natural justice.

Through its actions, the Australian Labor Party has placed itself firmly on the wrong side of the wedge.

It does not deserve and will not receive my preference in the forth coming national election.

Flirting

2007-07-04T22:04:00.000+10:00

So.

I was dining alone at Blackbird this evening, while working on some Java code.

Across from me there were two tables. At one table sat two girls, at the other a guy and two girls. I thought I noticed one of the girls at the first table glancing at me, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, they got up and left eventually.

As I was eating my dessert, I noticed one of the girls at the second table looking in my direction. Eventually I caught her eye and then a smile. Sure enough, she was looking at me. Exciting.

At one point she gets up and goes somewhere - presumably to the ladies. When she comes back she steals a glance in my direction, which I meet with a smile. She continues to steal glances in my direction then reaches for her wallet and gets up again. Her friends notice she has gone. In a few moments she comes back with a packet of cigarettes which she puts in her bag.

We continue stealing glances at each other and during one such moment, I mouth "Pontoon" while gesticulating with my finger in the direction of "Pontoon" the bar. She smiles and nods. Then she gets up again and disappears behind me. 3rd time. I figure I _have_ to get up and follow this time. After a discreet delay I get up too and head in the direction I think she has headed - towards the lavatories. I wait around a few moments, hoping she will appear but when she doesn't I head back to the table. Eventually she returns to her table.

I order another cognac which eventually arrives. The glances and smiles continue, but then I run out of cognac and then my battery runs out. This leaves me in the embarrassing position of not having anything to pretend to be doing.

So, I pull an old tram ticket from my wallet and when I catch her eye again, I slip the ticket under the salt and pepper shaker on the table. She smiles. The only problem - I don't have a pen with which to scribble my name and phone number. No problem. I'll use the pen that the waiter gives me when he brings the bill.

The bill arrives and I hand the waiter my credit card. He returns with the receipt and a pen but instead of leaving the bill for me to sign, he stands in front of me while I sign it. Very unusual for Blackbird, because they usually disappear for ages. I think all the cognac I had been drinking made him nervous that I was going to scarper without paying!

The fact that he is standing around flusters me a bit. So I gesture that I want to speak to him and ask him to see that the tram ticket doesn't disappear from the table until she leaves.

I sign the credit card receipt and hand the receipt and pen back to him. He disappears. I then realise that I haven't written my name and number on the tram ticket

Disaster!

She catches my eye again and I gesticulate with hands raised in exasperation as I search desperately for a pen in my bag. Of course, I don't have one. So I start giggling and she does too.

So I decide there is nothing else for it. I am going to have to say something to her as I leave. I get up and as I walk by her table, I say: "I have only one thing to say: Pontoon.". She says: "Pontoon?". I say "Pontoon", laugh and then leave.

So, I head to Pontoon and wait around for 30 minutes or so, hoping she will appear. Sadly, she doesn't.

Australia Post Billpay

2007-03-31T22:42:00.000+10:00

I have had an Australia Post PO Box for 15 years or so. I had an Australia Post mail redirection service for several years but since they failed consistently to redirect my mail I let that lapse because it was a waste of money.

The only online way to pay Australia Post for their PO Box service is to use Australia Post's own Post Billpay service. The only way.

I hate using this service. The only bill I want to pay with this service is the only bill I have to pay with this service. Australia Post's own goddamn bill.

As a result, every 12 months I have to get my password reset because I can't remember what it was 12 months before.

This year, the user id and password lookup function failed. I tried all 4 post codes that it could have been, different spellings of my mother's maiden name and different ways of writing my birth date. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that their system had actually forgotten about me. So, I created a new account, I registered my payment details (again) and I attempted to make my payment to Australia Post.

No can do. Error message: Australia Post requires payment by 31 March 2007.

I check the time: 22:30, 31 March 2007.

Argh!!!

So, I find a complaints form and vent my spleen for the umpteenth time about having to use this useless service.

I have to say though, at least the complaints system worked.

I hadn't even finished writing up this blog post when I received a call from Australia Post's payment processing service offering to take my payment over the phone. Given the completely obnoxious nature of the rest of the service, that is nothing short of astonishing.

Postscript: On April 10, I received a final notice from Australia Post, dated April 1, demanding payment of the bill that I actually paid on March 31. D'oh.

Earth Hour

2007-03-31T20:24:00.000+10:00

I wandered down to the harbour to see what happened when "Earth Hour" kicked in.

It was kind of a fizzer, really.

Most office buildings had already turned off most of their lighting before 7:30, so there wasn't a sudden dimming of lights, which somewhat diminished the effect. Also, the street lighting stayed on so, locally, there was not much difference.

That said, most office buildings did actually turn of their illuminated signs. Notable exceptions were Mulpha in the city and Samsung in North Sydney.

Presumably the marketing geniuses at Samsung will use the publicity generated by their defiant bucking of the consensus to put a green spin on their own lighting products. On the other hand, perhaps I should credit them for a lack of hypocrisy. How many corporations are actually willing to back up this gesture by permanently switching off all non-essential lighting. Not many, I bet.

The most convincing realisation of the sentiment I observed was the Harlequin Hotel. They dimmed their house lights so that patrons had to find their way around in the glow of large flat screen TVs.

Given the unlikely chain of coincidences that seem to keep cropping up in this blog, what's the bet that those flat screen TVs were manufactured by, um, Samsung?

Update: Mmmm...it would seem Samsung can't be cleared of hypocrisy - apparently they were quite willing to sign up to Earth Hour. Just not committed enough to actually switch off their lights. Oops.

On the Hicks sentence

2007-03-31T20:23:00.000+10:00

John Howard must be pleased. His commitment to George W. Bush's fiasco in Iraq has paid off handsomely. Hicks home before the election, Hicks' admission of guilt, Hicks' denial of mistreatment and torture, Hicks gagged from media appearances. Meanwhile Messrs Howard, Downer and Ruddock can continue to spin the news however they like, secure in the knowledge that Hicks is unable to put forward his version of the truth.

Every aspect of this outcome reeks of the political expediency which defines John Howard as Prime Minister, politician and man.

A definition of tragedy

2007-03-24T00:45:00.000+11:00

This passed through my e-mail box but deserves a much wider audience - even if it is an old one...

Prime Minister John Howard was visiting a primary school and he visited one of the classes. They were in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked the Prime Minister if he would like to lead the discussion on the word "tragedy".

So the illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a "tragedy".

One little boy stood up and offered: "If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him. That would be a 'tragedy'. "No," said Howard, "that would be an accident."

A little girl raised her hand: "If a school bus carrying fifty children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not," explained the Prime Minister "That's what we would call a great loss."

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. John searched the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of tragedy?"

Finally, at the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand...

In a quiet voice he said: "If the aeroplane carrying you and Mrs Howard was struck by a "friendly fire" missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy. "Fantastic!" exclaimed John Howard. "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?"

"Well," says Johnny, "It has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be a f***ing accident either."

Yet another meaningless coincidence

2007-03-18T13:55:00.000+11:00

I glanced at my bookshelf today. My copy of that silly book called "The Celestine Prophecy" is one book away from the box of a computer game called "Exile".

If you have read yesterday's posts, you may exclaim as I did: "Hah!"

This just goes to show that you can find spurious connections between anything if you look at enough stuff and have a defective trivia filter.

As further proof of the ease with which spurious connections can be made, I offer this: on the other side of that silly book is a book called "Against the wall" which is the book that inspired me, in part, to take up indoor climbing. That book has a title which is contained in the title of a song that I mentioned in a post about invisible walls. Next to that book is a book of Australian short stories called "Strange Attractors". Strange? If one chooses to think so.

The funny thing is, being of a somewhat mystical bent, she might impute significance to these connections.

I, of course, do not.

All these connections prove is how trivial it is for me to link anything, anything at all, back to her.

Speaking of hippy dippy sh*t....

2007-03-17T16:33:00.000+11:00

This morning, I was amused to realise that I had formed a reasonably strong, if somewhat irrational, belief that she is back in Australia now.

This belief is, of course, unsupported by (if not completely inconsistent with) any facts as I know them. It is just a feeling.

If this belief is true, it is a slightly spooky coincidence. If not, it is just silly confabulation.

Come to think of it - it is just silly confabulation, either way.

Hang On St. Christopher

2007-03-17T15:19:00.000+11:00

Thorough readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed that I exhibit a rather perplexing tendency to take notice of, and sometimes act on, meaningless coincidences. Perplexing because, on the surface at least, I value rationalist modes of thought.

I am not sure why I am drawn to coincidences, though perhaps it has something to do with the circumstances surrounding my discovery of a silly book called "The Celestine Prophecy" while browsing in a Melbourne bookstore a long time ago. The book caught my eye because its cover made mention of travels to Peru. Coincidentally, of course, I was just at that time developing an interest in a certain someone who was born there.

So, I bought the book and started to read it. If nothing else, I rationalised, the specious connection to Peru it contained would provide me with something to talk to her about.

Man. What a load of hippy, dippy, shit.

It turns out, though, that she quite liked the book and thought it had something useful to say about the meaning of coincidences.

Oops.

On his trip to Peru, the narrator of the book met a woman whom he falls deeply for. Then she tells him that there was a reason she appeared in his life, but it was not to be his life-time companion and with that she disappears from his life. Ah, the bittersweet irony.

But back to the subject of this post which is a mildly amusing but trivial coincidence that occurred today ...

Several times over the last few weeks I have happened to be at the Hoey while a band called "The Exiles" were playing. A 5-piece fronted by the entrancing Kym-Louise Barton, they play an interesting mix of country and rock. The final 2 or 3 songs of their set are really strong. The last is a tune called "Hang On St. Christopher" where Fiona, the bass guitarist, picks up a sax and Danny, the drummer, plays the trumpet with one hand while continuing to bang drums with the other. It is a rollicking good cover of a Tom Waits song.

Anyway, I popped in to Red Eye Records this afternoon hoping to pick up a copy of "The Exiles" album which turns out to be not quite finished yet and so decided instead to purchase a copy of "Franks Wild Years" which is the Tom Waits album which originally featured "Hang On St. Christopher".

At the counter, I realised that the guy serving me was the other guitarist, Matt, from "The Exiles". Fancy that! In talking to him, I learnt that this tune will make it onto their album when it finally gets released -in April, they hope.

As I close this post I feel compelled to note that if the one who is not has a favourite saint, then perhaps that saint would be the patron saint of travel - one St. Christopher. Hang on...

Poppycock.

2007-03-06T01:12:00.000+11:00

Suddenly the Howard government is placing a premium on ministerial responsibility. Not one minister resigned over the various immigration scandals, the unjust detention of David Hicks, children overboard, the Iraq debacle, the AWB scandal or any matter of actual substance. Now Ian Campbell takes it upon himself to resign because of a 20 minute meeting with Brian Burke. Poppycock.

Page 4, SMH 5/3/2007.

I've never seen so many Australian flags...

2007-03-04T00:59:00.000+11:00

To set the scene...

In December 2005, the Cronulla riots occurred, ostensibly a conflict between Anglo Australians and Lebanese Australians. At the Big Day Out in January 2006, overt displays of the Australian flag seemed to cause outbreaks of violence. In 2007, the organizers of the Big Day Out announced that, in the interests of public safety, display of the Australian flag would be banned. There was widespread outrage from all and sundry and the organisers were forced to back down. Needless to say at the Big Day out on January 25, 2007 Australian flags were everywhere to be seen. Likewise, the same was true everywhere else on the next day - Australia Day.

Yet, I don't think I have seen as many Australian flags as I did tonight.

The twist is this: tonight was Mardi Gras. And all the flags -- and I really mean all -- were pink.

Brilliant!

Leadership. By example.

2007-03-03T14:45:00.000+11:00

Wandering through the city this afternoon, I passed by a flock of people milling about the entrance to the State Theatre in Market Street. Clearly conference goers of some sort, since they were all wearing name badges. Some were dressed in business suits. The title on each name badge read: "Sydney Leadership Certification Conference".

Interesting concept. Multitudes of people spending their Saturday to be lectured about leadership. The crowd scene from the "Life of Brian" sprung to mind:

BRIAN: Look. You've got it all wrong. You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow anybody! You've got to think for yourselves. You're all individuals!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we're all individuals!
BRIAN: You're all different!
FOLLOWERS: Yes, we are all different!
DENNIS: I'm not.

It struck me that these people were sheep being led to some kind of metaphorical slaughter, but this wasn't confirmed until I got back home and had a chance to Google the title of the conference.

As I paused to cross at the lights at George St, I noticed two earnest young men dressed in suits, sitting on their haunches in front of a homeless man. The homeless man was also, as it happens, dressed in a suit.

Had he fallen? No, he was just sitting there, begging for cash from passers by with a handwritten cardboard sign. One of the men in suits (one of the younger, clean shaven ones) had some issue with the quality of the man's advertising. He picked up the cardboard sign and waved it about so as to emphasise his point, whatever that was.

Satisfied that they had done their best to impart their wisdom to a fellow businessman, the young men got up and rejoined their admiring girlfriends.

As I walked past, I couldn't help but notice that these people were also wearing the conference badge.

Ah, leadership. By example.

Bring on the pink elephants...

2007-02-22T18:07:00.000+11:00

...or the troupe of South American Dancing Girls

I am starting to find this deep introspection and explication exhausting which, I think, is a good thing - my body is starting to re-assert control where my mind has failed.

It may mean that I stop posting here about these subjects for a while or, if I am lucky, forever. But fear not, dear readers, the silence just means I am just resting and healing, nothing more.

A phase change?

2007-02-21T08:47:00.000+11:00

To be honest, I was somewhat surprised by my reaction to learning that she now has a baby, but I genuinely do feel an emotion bordering on happiness for her.

Sure, it is tinged with a little sadness, since there is no socially acceptable way that I can contribute to or share her joy - whatever comfort she might draw from my expressions of happiness for her would likely and understandably be dwarfed by her displeasure at learning that aspects of her life had fallen within the reach of Google.

Learning that she was married was a bitter pill to swallow, but it didn't fundamentally change the way I felt or thought about her. It merely cooled the temperature of my feelings, not their fundamental character.

This news brings with it, I think, the chance to effect a more fundamental, qualititative change in the way I think about her - akin to the phase change between water and ice.

Beside the interests of her new baby --- which, of course, are none of my business -- my self-indulgent concerns are really quite a trifling matter. That's why I have retracted my recent posts.

They just don't matter any more.

And then they were three...

2007-02-19T17:30:00.000+11:00

And then they were three.
May he inherit the charm of his mother,
and the good fortune of his father.

...he says, feeling somewhat guilty about learning this happy news by stumbling a little too far through the web.

Half Of Infinity

2007-02-12T17:30:00.000+11:00

As metaphors go, the metaphor of an invisible wall is not a bad one. It captures how I feel and the futility of my desire.

Where did this metaphor come from?

It was inspired in part by Ed, a guy from Utah I met at WWW7 in Brisbane in 1998. We spent a few enjoyable nights discussing philosophies of life over a beer or two. During one of these discussions he mentioned how he conceived of his marriage as a house of many rooms, some rooms were hers, some were his and some were shared. The house was never quite finished, always being worked on.

I thought that his metaphor was great and when I related it to my own life at the time, the metaphor of the invisible wall just made so much sense. I could catch glimpses of her, but I could no longer get near to her - emotionally or physically.

What are the attributes of this wall? Invisible, impenetrable, timeless and infinite.

It's invisibility is not so relevant any more - it was more relevant when we were still working for the same employer and occasionally communicating. If I look through the wall now, there is rarely anything to see, since she is so very far away in every sense of those words.

Impenetrable? It is surely that. There is nothing I can do to break it down and I have long since stopped trying. I flail my arms against it occasionally, but not because I expect it to give way. There is, perhaps, a certain irony that in the last couple of years I have taken to climbing walls at the gym. Only up and down, mind you - never across the top.

Timeless? When I first noticed the wall, it appeared to have arisen spontaneously out of nowhere. At first, I hoped it would disappear, but the horrifying realisation that it was here to stay slowly dawned on me. Now, however, I think it is more useful to consider that it always has been and always will be there and that I only noticed its existence when she started to move away and I found myself unable to follow.

Infinite? Yep, that it is. This wall has no top, it has no edge. There is no way around it, over it or under it.

In effect, the wall divides the universe in two: between the universe of the impossible and the universe of the possible. She is beyond the wall, in the land of the impossible. I am here in front of the wall in the land of the possible, forever wanting to move beyond it.

On the bright side, half of infinity is still infinity. And, yes, I know I should content myself with that which I can find in this half of infinity. The Whitlams have a song with lyrics that are somewhat relevant:

Some say love it only comes once in a lifetime
Well once is enough for me
She was one in a million
So there's five more just in New South Wales

I had to laugh today when I realised that these lyrics come from a song whose title is none other than: Up Against The Wall.

The Invisible Wall

2007-02-11T13:30:00.000+11:00

In a previous post I wrote:

When I occasionally force myself to imagine the real person - to remind myself of the difference - the person I imagine gazes upon me warily from a distance: still, silent, cold, aloof and with little sympathy. I imagine her disdain for me.

On reflection I realise it is absurd to consider these words as a description of the real her. They are as much a confabulation as anything else I think about in relation to her.

What we actually have here is an inanimate, two-dimensional projection of what I think her stance with respect to me would be. It presumes that there is a stance which, of course, there usually isn't. Aside from the rare email from me there is no reason to believe that she has any reason consider me at all.

Yes that is all it is - a painting. To be hung on a wall. What better wall to hang it on, than the one I conceived of a long time ago...

There is an invisible wall between myself and her. All there is left for me to do is ponder the question: what colour should I paint it?

I never did paint that wall though I do seem to spend a lot of time decorating it with curios.

Thursday and Friday

2007-01-26T20:55:00.000+11:00

Thursday

Buying my coffee of Thursday, the new girl at the cafe asked me how my day had been. "Not too bad", I answered which, given the emotional turmoil of the last week, was, I think, an entirely reasonable response.

"What, not even rising to the giddying heights of good?", she responded.

I wasn't really expecting that, but the response was automatic: "It never gets there", I half-joked.

She said something about negativity, et cetera. Whatever.

Later that night I saw the excellent Bill Callahan at the Hopetoun.

After the gig, I wandered down to the Q-bar to play some pool and observe the scenery. On the way down Oxford St, I noticed the girl from the cafe walking the other way. I raised my arm in greeting and called out hi. She recognized me and asked me how I was going.

"Not bad", I replied.

I wonder if she noticed the improvement in my mood?

Friday

Australia Day. I think I must have slept through the last 10 Australia days, because I didn't realize how crazily jingoistic the things are. Darling Harbour and Hyde Park were absolutely packed and almost everyone had a Aussie flag of some description. Flags on sticks, flags as drapery, painted-on tattoos, T-shirts, board-shorts, baseball caps. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Still, I thought it'd be fun to catch the end of the JJJ Hottest 100 so I wandered up to Hyde Park to watch the count down. Eskimo Joe came in at #2, which I was pleased with and Andrew's favourite Augie March topped it with "One Crowded Hour". Good on 'em.

But the thing that really made my day was "The Doctor's" T-shirt. Black with fluoro pink lettering: "FREE BINDI".

Work Xmas Party 2006

2006-12-14T23:39:00.000+11:00

This years Xmas party was good fun. It had a circus theme, so I decided to go with a clown's mask. There is, of course, no better clown than our esteemed foreign minister Alexander Downer. So, I obtained one of Alan Moir's cartoons and my dad printed it, mounted it on a sheet of polycarbonate attached to a piece of aluminum extrusion. I printed some speech bubbles with his various inanities including the classic "things that batter" remark and stuck them to the mask with a drawing board pin.

A disturbing number of unkind souls remarked that the caricature was a very good likeness - not of Downer - but of me!? Cads!

Zander got very drunk that evening. Myself, I remained sober, though I can't remember how.

Serendipity

2006-12-12T22:54:00.000+11:00

Here's a photo I took with my Nokia 6280 without too much thought or preparation. It was only later that I realised that the image has a somewhat pleasing visual structure. A complete fluke, of course, but there you go.