Do The Crime, Do The Time

 The Bali Nine amaze me, especially Renae Lawrence. Yesterday her life sentence for trying to smuggle $4million dollars worth of heroin (with 8 other accomplices) out of Bali and into Australia was reduced to 20 years.

Listening to ABC on the radio this morning I heard an interview done with her last night / this morning. And I was amazed at some of the things she said. The Age has an article on this interview here.

Referring to her original life sentence:

"I mean I don't (feel) happy with that sentence it should never have happened."

You must be joking? It would never have happened if you hadn't decided to try to smuggle heroin out of Bali – simple as that. Or is it?

"I apologise to the Australian public if I've disgraced Australia or anything else. But I think as I said … they would have done exactly as I did if put in the same situation."

If put in the same situation eh? Well, personally I don't believe the whole cock and bull story about being forced to do this drug run under threat of harm to her family. However, lets believe her story for arguments sake. The thing is this, most Australians wouldn't associate with people that are involved in drug smuggling – full stop. You spend time around criminals and you will become involved in their world, be it in a small way or a big way as the Bali Nine found out. So basically, most Australians wouldn't have been put in your situation Renae because they wouldn't be hanging around drug smugglers.

"No," she said when asked if the government supported her. "I prefer not to go into the government side of it."

Seriously, what could the Australian government do when you chose to get involved in drug smuggling within an Asian country – where sentences for drug related crimes are harsh and heavy. Australia doesn't have jurisdiction to interfere with other countries legal systems. They can place diplomatic pressure but that rarely achieves anything in these cases. Of course she is bitter at the Australian Federal Police (and thus the Australian government) for tipping off Indonesian authorities about her and her cohorts plans. 

There's a saying that's been around for years and rings in my ears everytime I hear one of the Bali Nine complaining, whinging and justifying their actions: Do the crime, do the time. 

Rising Oil Costs

Yesterday the price of petrol hit $1.45 a litre. $1.45 a litre! I remember when I was a young'n and the price of petrol was $.64 a litre (gas was around $.12 a litre), even 2 or 3 years back it was only $.80. Go back 8 months and we're talking $1 – but $1.45!? Crazy.

Rising oil prices are of course the reason. Pure supply and demand they say. The story goes that India and China's economies are experiencing a boom and thus their desire for oil has increased hugely, this putting a strain on world oil supplies resulting in the price of crude oil going up, up, up. Of course the fact that the OPEC, Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (read oil cartel), frequently decides to manipulate oil supply doesn't help (and wouldn't you know it, it's decisions are usually to cut supply).

Apparently the Americans aren't too impressed with the recent increase in fuel costs either. Meanwhile our own Treasurer defends the fuel excise (roughly $.38) that we Australians pay on our petrol (as well as the $.038 GST on this fuel excise).

It's surely made me consider the option of selling my 3.8 litre V6 car and getting something a little more economical. As fate would have it, we now require this larger car so that isn't an option that can be taken up. Until our little baby comes along though, most of my driving is done in our smaller 2.2 litre 4 cyclinder car.

As the prices of oil continue to escalate, hybrid (electric & petrol) and hydrogen cars will become more and more viable as cars of choice for the fuel conscious buyer.

I'll finish this rambling off by showing you some interesting stats: Comparative prices of petrol globally and how far $20 USD worth of fuel will get you various countries around the world. I had a much cooler website for the second link, with a graph and everything, but I can't find it now. C'est la vie. UPDATE: I've found it – go here to check it out!

The Clever Country Gets A Clever Card

Ok, so it's really called a "Smartcard". Had I said that though my clever play on the "clever country" comment by the then Prime Minister of Australia, Bob Hawke, won't have been so… what's the word… clever.

This article in The Age gives an overview of what it is and what it isn't. It will replace, apparently, 17 cards that exist at the moment for health care & social security. One of the major cards it will replace is the Medicare card – the card which gives one access to the free public health system of Australia. They estimate it will save $3billion over 10 years in health/social security fraud at a cost of $1billion over 4 years.

Now, here's the interesting thing. This "smartcard" is not compulsory and that is the difference between it and an "identity card", or so says the Minister for Health & Aging Tony Abbott (or it might have been another one of his colleagues) this morning on 3AW to Niel Mitchell (or was it the ABCs John Faine?). An identity card is something you must carry on you at all times, produce it on request by authorities and must be a part of (you can't "opt out") etc. Whereas the "smartcard" is just something you need to access certain government departments and if you don't want one, you don't have to get one.

Here's the thing though, and so rightly brought up on the radio. Lets consider the ability for one to legally drive a car on the road. For this, you need a drivers license. Now, it is not compulsory for every person in Australia to have a drivers license, but without it you cannot drive on the roads. Likewise, it's not compulsory to have a "smartcard" but if you plan to claim health costs on Medicare (and nearly every person in Australia is put of the medicare health system and claims on it), well, you'll need a "smartcard".

Be interesting to see if this leads down the path of an identity card and further Big Brother antics, as civil liberty groups fear. I'd also be interested to see what architecture (pc or *ix) they'll be running this system off – at a cost of $1billion to implement, someones making a killing somewhere.

ANZAC Day

Yesterday was ANZAC, Australian & New Zealand Army Corps, Day in Australia and New Zealand. It is a national public holiday to remember the ANZACs who have served in battle for Australia or New Zealand. "Lest We Forget" is it's immortal slogan. Typically the day remembers the ill fated landing of ANZAC forces at Gallipoli, Turkey during World War I (or The Great War as they called it back then), but it is also a day for ANZAC WWII, Korean, Vietnam soldiers as well our current soldiers in Iraq, Afganistan and various other peace/humanitarian forces around the world.

My day started at 4:15am as I got up in preparation for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service, held at the Melbourne Shrine of Rememberance, my 2nd Dawn Service in as many years. I picked up a friend at 5am and we proceeded into the city. I must say, it is a marvelous site to see so many people turning out for the Dawn Service – 30,000 were the media estimates and it sure felt like there were that many. The older generation was there, as to be expected, but it was the younger (my age and younger) that were out in force yesterday. Young lads, young girls, families with babies, gray haired bikies, couples, grandparents – all were there.

A moving preservice tribute was read and then the actual Dawn Service started. Was very touching as a young year 12 (I think) student described her trip to the fields of the Western Front and mentioned a comment a local made to her as she was leaving. "Thank-you for having us", she had said and this old gentleman had replied, "No. Thank-you for your country's sacrifice, we would not be here today without you." There were a few sniffles in the crowd.

After the service had finished, around 6:30am, I waited 45 minutes in line as the crowd shuffled through the actual Shrine and laid down poppies. It was a terribly cold morning, but well worth it. Headed back home before coming back into the city to watch Essendon vs Collingwood in the ANZAC Day Match (Australian Rules footy). 91,000 screaming fans, the majority of whom seemed to be Collingwood fans, were not disappointed as it was a close game all day til the final five minutes when Collingwood broke away to eventually win by 17 points. Was not a happy ending for me, I barrack for Essendon, but was still a great ending to a great day.

I have a few photos that I took of this years Dawn Service, as well as lasts years, that I'll be posting on my Pbase account shortly.

1984 Apple Insert

I've never really been a fan of Apple or it's Macintosh computers.

I was brought up on an early Amstrad 664, then an IBM XT, an AT, 286 (skipped the SX and went straight to the DX), 386, 486, Pentium etc. My first personal computer was a 386 DX40 (yep, 40 whooping megahertzs of processing power), 4Mb of RAM (which cost over $80 per Mb), a 40Mb HDD (or perhaps 110Mb, memory is sketchy) and an amber (read orange) monitor. Brought this with my twin brother, and damn if we didn't think we were the bees knees.

We later upgraded to a 486 DX100 (this was an overclocked DX25 I think) and from there I think we went our separate ways with computers thought there might have been a joint Pentium somewhere along the way. My current home computer is a Duron 1.3Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 120Gb HDD, LCD monitor – not very impressive, I know. My Centrino 1.6Ghz laptop is slightly more impressive, though just.

But I digress, back to Apple and the Mac. I found an interesting advertisement (on Digg or Reddit) that Apple put out back in 1984, showing it's new Macintosh computer. Of interest is the comparison between it's software (or should I say, the software that ran on the Mac) and the software running on IBMs at the time – the Mac was obviously far ahead.

It's amazing the IBM based PC (thanks to IBM's policy of allowing clone manufacturers and Microsoft Windows) is now the most dominate computer in the market (kudos to the inroads Mac and the various *ix distros are making these days). Sometimes flooding the market with cheaper options will win over style and form. Apple is on a real winner with it's iPod though, I wonder if anyone will ever catch up again in the portable music industry.

Viewing this advertisement (page 7) reminded me of the good ole Amstrad and my Dad having to use control tags to get bold text or italic text or larger font sizes etc. Kind of an early precursor to HTML if you like. Also, check out page 10 for an endorsement from Bill Gates.

Remember how I said I've never really been a fan of Apple and it's Macs – well, on the weekend I checked out a G4 laptop for a friend and must say it was a pretty tight unit. Unfortunately, I missed out on winning it (was on eBay) for my friend, but there'll be other opportunities.
Anyone else have any old computer related nostalgia that'd like to share?

What’s In A Name?

A name is a name right? Just a label by which to call a person/object something. Well maybe to you, but for me it’s much more. It’s a sense of your identity. When I think about names, I immediately remember people I have known with the same name, and based on my experiences with them, I either like the name or dislike the name.

My name in real life, you gasp at the realisation that my name isn’t Olorin, is quite unique. It’s a name that most people have heard of, but very rarely give to their children. I like it – the fact it is associated with a famous movie tough guy adds to my appreciation of it.

And the importance of names is even more apparent these days as my wife and I think of what to call our baby. Not knowing the sex doesn’t help us any, we have to think up of a boys name and girls name, but just finding a name for one gender is hard enough. We’ve been though the “10,000 Baby Names” book, been to numerous online name sites, paid extra attention to the names of babys born around us and still we haven’t really settled on a name we like. Well, not really. I’ve got a boys name that I quite like and I’m in the process of wearing down my wife to accepting it. Wish me luck.

On the side, what are your suggestions for a boys or girls name?

A Freshen Up

This year, in October, it will be 8 years since my wife and I brought our current house. At the time I did some work on it to get it looking a bit nicer (it’s an old 1950’s 2BR house). Ripped up the carpet and polished the floorboards underneath. Repainted the whole house. That was about it.

A few years of living in it and we decided to do some more renovations. So we did up the front, put in new windows, wooden venetions, built a verandah etc. Then my wife redid the laundry while I was away overseas working for 4 months. A few years later and we redid the bathroom. Which leads us to now.

See, with the baby coming along, our house is too small now. As it is, I’ve moved my office out into the laundry so that we could setup the 2nd bedroom as a nursery for our soon to arrive baby. So being that the house isn’t large enough for us anymore, thoughts of purchasing a new/newer house have been on the mind.

Problem is our current colour scene of the house looked fine back in 1998, but not so fine in 2006. If we’re going to sell it, we need to give it a freshen up. I was going to repaint the house myself but I have been so busy with work, church & family committments that I just can’t find the time.

On Monday the painter starts repainting our house. Can’t wait.

4 Billion Losers

Interesting post over at The Dilbert Blog entitled 4 Billion Losers – I'll summarise it here but go on over and check it out.

Recently I asked the believers among you to explain why you believe in your own prophet but not the other guy’s prophet. The LDS (Mormon) folks said they talk directly to God and get personal answers. Most of the rest of you said something along the lines that your prophet(s) (or Christ) told you that the other guy’s prophet(s) (or Christ) isn’t all that. Fair enough. I was concerned that you hadn’t thought it through.

Now I have another question for the believers. And by the way, I’m genuinely curious. I don’t do this just to stir up things, although that’s fun too. I actually wonder how you think. My question is this: How do you explain to yourself that 4 billion people (minimum) believe different from you?

Ah a discussion on religion. You can be guaranteed to get the following kinds of responses:

1. There is no God, religion is for the weak. You're a loser, physco etc if you believe in God.
2. There is no God, but go ahead and believe in it anyway.
3. There is some sort of god (God, Buddha, Allah, Mother Earth, Justin Timberlake etc) that just wants you to be a "good" person and embraces all people.

Then there's my belief system. Straight up front, no messing around it is this:

1. There is only one God (the God of the Bible).
2. God can not associate with Sin.
3. Men & women Sin and thus will have an eternity with no relationship with God (i.e. hell).
4. God in His wisdom and love has given as an avenue to get forgiveness for our Sins via His son Jesus Christ. Through Jesus we can spend eternity in relationship with God (i.e. heaven).

So how come, according to The Dilbert Blog, 4billion+ other people in the world don't believe this. Well, I believe (there's that word again) it comes down to three reasons:

1. They can't, won't or don't believe there is a God (I'm talking about the God of the Bible here).
2. They think there might be a God, but when they think about the consequences of this (i.e. changing their life, obeying His commandments), they prefer to ignore it.
3. They haven't heard about God.

My upbringing has had an influence on my belief in God, but only so far as establishing the concepts of God. I had to make a decision to accept this as true, personalise my faith and follow through with it. This has led to my strong belief & convictions in God. 4billion other people in the world don't have to believe in God – but I do.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

Wassup with Google?

You know, I like Google search. It's fast, well thought out, gives the results you want yadda yadda. I also like Gmail too, which I find useful for creating email accounts on the fly for various different reasons, though I use the pop3 integration so the interface isn't really that big a deal. Heck, even Google Maps is ok I suppose.  Then there's the free wifi it offers in various areas of America (see here for more details). So, Google is aight (trying to get a little street cred in this post).

However, it's recently furore into a different area is quite strange – Google Romance. What the!? This is just too sad on too many levels. Sure sure, they've developed "cutting-edge personal search algorithms" to help you "instantly find your perfect match". But really, this isn't the ground breaking stuff you'd expect from Google.

To be honest, lately Google has been trying to do everything and be everywhere. But it's just not cutting it with me. And what about it's motto of "do no evil"? Recent events have proven that's a crock, as it bent to the will of China to self censor it's new Google China site.

Google is the current darling of Wall Street and the IT world – but it's starting to lose it's shine in my opinion. I predict it becoming the new Microsoft of the future – huge, lots of products, big influence, but hated. Your thoughts?

Feed Aggregator

I read a number of different websites each day- some of which are technology related, some social, some news, some political etc. It can be quite a pain visiting each site daily, finding the latest posts, reading etc.

So I decided to check out a feed aggregator. It basically gives you one location from which to view all your websites (providnig they have rss/atom/xml/etc feeds available). There are two types: software based and online based. Now only the unread posts are shown, they are all in one spot and it's sa-weet as.

I went with an online based type because I wanted to use an aggregator that didn't need to be installed and was accessible from multiple computers. I ended up choosing Bloglines.

Now, aggregators have been around for ages but I just haven't really seen the need for them – but, if you're reading over 10+ websites a day, I highly recommend spending the time looking for one and then using it. Sure has saved me time!