I was a little late getting in this morning due to a headache and feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, so unfortunately this meant I missed giving my lightning talk. For those who were interested, I’ll be blogging the content next week.
I met up with Glyn Moody, Stephen Schmid and Julian Carver for a casual chat about open government which was really interesting. We spoke about Open data, which Glyn saw as low hanging fruit. We also spoke about other types of projects happening around transparency in government and technology procurement. It’s interesting to me, because there is a lot of rhetoric around open datoa, citizen engagement and making government more transparent, but there isn’t a lot of discussion about how the current processes of technology procurement may actually inhibit open government initiatives.
Steve has been working for 2 1/2 years on developing the Open Technology Foundation strategy along with some of the other clever folk at the South Australian Office of the CIO, and they are now in the process of putting the plan into action. The Open Technology Foundation will be a great support mechanism for government in pursuing open data, standards, technology and methodologies, so check it out.
After that I continued chatting to Julian for while, particularly about policy development which was great given his experience. We discussed how policy development can mean a lot of different things, and how successful policies usually involve not only logical points but also an understanding of broader social and political context. As we were chatting he came up with an interesting idea. He said that the development of policy could be compared to code development, and perhaps we could purposefully apply the processes of code development to policy development. It’s an interesting thought that needs more consideration before further blogging
After a lovely ladies lunch at a great vegetarian place on Cuba St, I got ready for Rusty’s talk.
Rusty always gives very entertaining talks, and this was no exception. It was great not only for it’s humour factor, but because so many of our geek peers are having children (and Jeff and I look forward to having children someday) so getting Rusty’s experience in trying to introduce his young girl to programming was fantastic!
It was wonderful to see video of Rusty’s child (who is now around two years old now) using the different wrist bracelets and software Rusty developed for her. After many experiments with writing software she might like, Rusty hooked up a drum machine to an application he wrote, and it was an interesting experiment because when she hit the drums on the outside she got the best physical feedback (sound) and when she hit it in the middle she got software feedback (more eyes on the screen), which wasn’t nearly as satisfying or understandable for her. So at this point he decided to simplify:
This has been quite successful, so nice work Rusty, particularly for being the world’s first kernel developer focused on the pre-school market.
Favourite saying of the speech about introducing children to programming -> “Brainwash early, brainwash often”.
And as for what I eluded to yesterday, I played the part of a 2 yr old child for Rusty’s talk to demonstrate his awesome user design hacking for children. It was a lot of fun!
As a side note, I really want Rusty’s shirt, it said “Video games ruined my life, good thing I have two extra lives. <3 <3”.
I had a great discussion with Nat Torkington, again about open government where we brainstormed what government does, is meant to do, and what it would look like if it was designed by geeks.
We talked about open data, and how there are many stages to achieving openness. In the first instance, it is just about getting the data publicly accessible in useful formats and with permissive licences. The second stage is automation of the data (so it is machine readable and continually updated), then interactability wherein the APIs to the data is all open so that people can create systems thatfully interact with the systems and thus the data. Finally achieving read/write public data means that government data can be updated by citizens.
We also spoke about trust, and how trust is beginning to trump statements made regardless of the logic or verifiability, because many people will believe a statement from a trusted source even if they can’t verify it. Access to data is one thing that can help with verifiability, however often data by itself is not enough and data needs to be presented in an understandable and if possible interactive way for people to get the best outcomes.
In terms of interacting with government directly, using open API’s would lower the cost of business transactions and ultimately service delivery for government as well as potentially making goverment better at partnering with others. This would be particularly useful in emergencies as a great example.
We also had a bit of a thought experiment about how would we build a government department from scratch. More on that idea in a later blog post I think.
The conference closing was great. Lots of love and thanks all round. They announced the competition outcomes, and the QR code commpetition was nicely explained by Glynn.
Gopal (T3rminat0r) was the runner up for the photography competition with this, which is an amazing shot, and Andy Fitzsimon said we should all set it as our backgrounds for “at least two months”
Mike Beattie took the great winning photo:
linux.conf.au 2011 was announced to be in Brisbane! Hooray!
I didn’t get to the Penguin Dinner, which was a real shame but I wasn’t feeling well and had to stay home and sleep a bit more.
Other cool stuff I saw today:
Some linux.conf.au media coverage I’ve enjoyed from this week so far:
Angus Kidman
Computer World — Stephen Bell
CIO — Rodney Gedda
Tech Eye — Nick Farrell
Computerworld — Kathryn Edwards
There’s a bunch more, I’ll try to do update the media list tomorrow, right now I need to go sleep some more.
It began as long as a year ago with a bit of anti-sugar advocacy from Denise, my mother-in-law… She suggested I read Sweet Poison, which is basically an Australian pop-science rediscovery of John Yudkin’s Pure, White and Deadly — published in 1972. 1972!
My curiosity was reignited when Garrett recently tweeted a link to this fantastic lecture:
Click here to view the embedded video.
So I have a new analogue hacking project: I’m going to see if I can massively reduce the amount of sugar in my diet. Obvious targets #1 and #2: soft drinks and sweets.
Although they probably represent the vast majority of my sugar consumption, the rest of it is the ugly, insidious, sand-in-your-budgies sugar you’ll find in the strangest of foods… especially if you’re in the USA, given the HFCS damage.
Update: Check out the Great Australian Internet Blackout project… now we’re getting serious about online/offline protests! 
Please, black out your website and online profile images in protest against the Australian Government’s Internet Filtering policy.
Why?
It may seem cheesy to turn your website or avatar black for an online protest, but it can form a part of a good online and offline campaign, particularly for Internet-related protests.
Many of my friends in New Zealand turned their websites and online profile images black to protest a proposed “guilt upon accusation” copyright law (Section 92A), providing massive online “Internet Blackout” support to the Creative Freedom campaign. I, and plenty of others around the world, also participated.
The most important bit: New Zealand media took notice, bringing a level of awareness to an Internet / copyright / online rights issue that would otherwise never have materialised. Ultimately, the new government chose to review the entire bill, and while the issue is still being fought, at least one battle was won… and now, there are more people informed about the issue to fight ACTA.
Now it’s Australia’s turn. Our current (otherwise pretty bloody sensible) government has adopted a terrible policy of mandatory Internet filtering, which Australians have been fighting against for many, many months. A technical report about the feasibility of the filter has just been released, which (on first glance) appears to validate the policy against technical challenges, and the government has announced that it is pursuing the policy to legislation.
Now, I’m not suggesting that turning stuff black will have a direct impact on government policy… However, I am suggesting that we can use broad-based online protest to increase awareness of the problem, and help those attempting to fight the good fight offline.
If Sunrise (a breakfast news show in Australia) or other news outlets note that “Australians are turning out the lights in protest against the government’s Internet filter”, that’s awareness value we’d never be able to raise by, say, marching in the streets. If it causes Tony Jones or Leigh Sales to ask a government minister why Australians are so upset about this policy, that’s incredibly worthy opinion-leader influence… and very likely cringe-worthy interview fodder.
So yes, blacking out your websites and online profile images alone would be tilting at windmills. But as an online component of a complete No Clean Feed campaign… very useful.
For my readers who are not in Australia… consider how this western, English-speaking democratic country might be the thin end of the wedge — that’s why I supported my New Zealand friends against S92A. Please participate, and support Australians in their embarrassment about this terrible Internet policy!
Remember: This is only useful as part of a broader campaign to raise awareness of the issue and pressure politicians to put a stop to this filter. Go to the EFA’s No Clean Feed site for all kinds of other things you can do. The best thing? Write in your own words by snail mail, call by telephone or meet with your local MP.
How?
The easy Twitter option:
More creative options… You could start with some handy templates I have made:
With layers: PSD for Photoshop · XCF for GIMP
Modifying your avatar, if you’re au fait with Photoshop or The GIMP:
On Twitter:
On Facebook:
On Gravatar (for blogs and lots of other websites):