It was interesting to see how many people were involved in the construction of a sign on the concourse of this station. People to put up the sign, people too protect the public, and people to supervise them all.
I’m interested about the number of people you see at construction sites. Though they all seems to have a designated job, and work seems to progress reasonably quickly.
Federal Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy is trying to implement mandatory filtering of the internet amid public outcry. Online “activists” at Getup have organised a campaign that has received over 22,000 signatures in just one day, in an attempt to put a stop to it.
If you have ever walked the streets of Tokyo you will understand why Japan is the land of the loyalty club. At station hubs there are many stores and supermarkets. Not to mention the number of small stores scattered across what seem to be back lanes. And the army of vending machines that keep watch over the streets.
With so many places to spend your money there must be a way to retain customers. And that way is the Points Card, or “ポイントカード”. If you submit to the sign up procedure, and remember to show your card before purchases, you accumulate points based on the amount you purchase. On accumulating enough points (and making many purchases) you receive a reward determined by the store.
It seems that almost every store you go into has a Point Card of some sort. Be it a plastic card with a bar code or a magnetic strip, a paper card that you get stamps on or apply stickers to, or some sort of fancy RFID card (Keferl, 2008). They are all a way to seek your continued patronage of the store. Read More
For those that can’t read all the text on the movie poster:
presented by
OFFICE OF FILM AND LITERATURE CLASSIFICATIONStephen Conroy as Guy Montag
Fahrenheit 451
2009?
staring STEPHEN CONROY and STEVE FIELDING director AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATION AND MEDIA AUTHORITY producers APATHY, CONFUSION and KNEE-JERK REACTION executive producer AUSTRALIAN TAXPAYERS distributor NATIONAL BROADBAND NETWORK
R18+ May not be available on the Internet in Australia
So, how did I come to make the image?
I went looking for information about lists of banner books in Australia. One of the points stressed about the censorship regime of the previous government (but not that of the new one) is that while the list of banned books is available (or you can test for them), but the list of banned sites is not.
It was interesting to see that ‘Fahrenheit 451′ was amongst the lists I found, because of coarse language used. Which sparked the above poster.
The current government is trying to impose a blank filter on all Australians. This is despite the reports received about the effect on network speed, and the unreliability of filters.
Perhaps the movie should be called Centigrade 435 after the temperature at which network cables ignite?
(Network cables have a PVC covering, which has an ignition temperature of 435C)
Commentary about censorship in Australia:
Some interesting sites about book banning:
I was reading an RPG forum where someone posed the question:
Open question: Why do we, at times, feel compelled to look at something else that someone does for fun and evaluate it negatively?
There were a number of pages of people’s opinions about the matter. Some with a lot of philosophy. I didn’t really have time to read them all, and the answer is really very simple:
Ok,
I haven’t read through all the 3 pages of posts, so I don’t know what everyone else has written, but I think it can easily be summed up by the following:
- People like to feel good about them self.
- People like to feel they are better than others.
- The easiest way to do this is to put other people down.
And if you think otherwise you are misguided and don’t know what you are talking about
Over the recent time some letters have found fame (and fortune?), while others have languished in obscurity. The letter ‘e’, already the most common letter in the English alphabet, has gained more ground as the short hand for electronic in things like E-mail and E-commerce.
The letter ‘i’ gained much fame as the Internet, with iMacs, iPhones, and other illiteration. While the letter ‘m’ had only a short life as mobile.
The table below contains a list of letters that have had their 15 minutes of fame:
| B | Business (B2B) |
| C | Consumer (B2C) |
| E | Electronic (e-mail, e-commerce) |
| G | Google (gmail) |
| I | Internet (iMac, iPhone, iTools) |
| K | Kilo (1000, Y2K) |
| M | Mobile |
| S | Secure (https, sftp, ssh) |
| X | Unknown, X-rated |
| Y, Z | Further unknowns |
What do you think will be the next big letter?
Who will be the new ‘e’ ?
Some possible ideas:
| C | Cloud computing |
| P | Personal |
Photo of the clouds over building 9 at Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Yesterday I turned on the TV in my phone just in time to watch Obama’s acceptance speech (serendipity perhaps). He scored 336 to 158 (or something like that). It reminded me of an opinion piece I read earlier that day in the Sydney Morning Herald.
The article by Peter Hartcher, The nation that stops a race … until now, seems to say that you can only be a powerful black American if you are only a recent black American. Others have some sort of inferiority complex.
It uses Colin Powell, a first generation American with Jamaican parents, and Barack Obama, another first generation with a Kenyan father, as examples of how African Americans can succeed (and become powerful). But that it only works for newcomers to the African American fraternity. That they both don’t have to live with the ancestral memory of slavery, the self doubt and feeling of low self worth that is holding back the other blacks in America.
His argument seems to ignore other African Americans that have succeeded.
There are prominent black American members of the entertainment industry. Will Smith and Halle Berry are good examples. Not to mention the success of Oprah Winfrey, in business, not just entertainment.
I’m sure there are many black American sport stars, though I’m not a follower of American sports, so can name only a few. Are Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, not important/successful African Americans?
And I can’t comment on black American business leaders, it’s not my area of expertise. But I’m sure some exist.
An important omission from his list of powerful African Americans is the current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.
While I can see his point about memory of slavery, I think it is an over simplification. And I disagree with the premis that only outsiders have a chance. As can be seen from the above examples, not all long term African Americans are limited by their heritage.
Walking around Shinjuku I found that it is already Christmas in Tokyo.
Tokyo Hands in the Takashimaya building has a display of Christmas decorations on sale. Including a snowman build from a frame of little lights, and many other light decorations.
And beside the building there is a walkway of arches covered on fairy lights. Which was turned on, for all of about 10 minutes, to test if it work correctly.
UNIVERSITIES will be allowed to charge students a compulsory fee of up to $250 a year to revitalise campus amenities and services which have deteriorated drastically since the abolition of compulsory student unionism. But these fees will go to the university administration, not to student bodies. Who is better able to prioritize fund distribution?
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