Category Archives: Australia

Australia

Brendan Nelson apologises over his “sorry” speech

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From the ABC news:

Federal Opposition leader Brendan Nelson has issued another very specific apology to a member of the Stolen Generations. In his speech in reply to the national apology this week, Dr Nelson referred to the story of a Victorian Aboriginal elder, Faye Lyman. But Ms Lyman says Dr Nelson did not ask her if he could use her story. When he incorporated it in what she describes as a “toxic speech”, she says he took her comments out of context, misrepresented the way she was taken from her family, and made her feel “stolen all over again”.

She goes on to say:

My Dad was not happy that I was taken […] They cheated us, they cheated me of my life with him. Now, I feel like I’m stolen all over again. My dignity, and I’m ashamed he’s done this to me, I’m so ashamed.

No wonder that hundreds of people turned their back on him as he spoke in response to the sorry motion in Parliament (see picture 7 in the ABC News slideshow).

Sorry

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I’ve not been able to get to blog for the last week, so I thought my first post would be in support of the Federal Governments apology (flash video) for their treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia (the text of the motion is here).

So whilst I am a (very) new Australian I recognise the fact that the people who came from the same island that gave me life were responsible for many of the wrongs visited upon indigenous people here, and for that I say sorry.

As a footnote, if you haven’t yet seen the complete footage of the “Welcome to Country” ceremony that preceded the opening of Parliament I suggest you do so soon, it appears it will expire from the ABC News website on the 11th March. 🙁

LCA 2008 Day 4 Photos

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I have uploaded my photos from Thursday (Day 4) of Linux.Conf.Au 2008 at Melbourne University. They are exclusively of the RepRap that was being shown off today and a gathering of people experimenting with the wireless mesh and collaborative capabilities of the OLPC XO’s that were distributed yesterday. I’ve already heard of at least 2 bugs being found through this release of machines to developers (one by Jason White).

RepRap RepRap fabricated parts Closeup of a RepRap fabricated part. A mesh of OLPC XO users Do you think it's meant to do that ? OLPC XO distance measuring application

I’ve just rearranged & geocoded all my LCA 2008 photos on Flickr into a set per day, gathered together into a single collection, which makes life easier for people who just want to see what happened on what day! I’ve updated the links on previous blog entries to point to the right set for the day in question too.

LCA 2008 Speakers Dinner and Day 3 Photos

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I’ve now uploaded more photos onto Flickr from the speakers dinner on Tuesday night held at St Pauls Chapter House (near the cathedral), built in 1891, a lovely building! I don’t have any photos from the day on Tuesday as I had to work.

Speakers dinner Avi up on the balcony St Pauls Chapter House Menu for the speakers dinner.

There are also photos from Day 3 (Wednesday) where at morning coffee there were LWN cakes to celebrate LWN’s 10th birthday and we were distributing OLPC XO laptops to various chosen delegates for them to go develop amazing things with (or give them to someone else who would). It was a great buzz to make peoples day like this, especially when they tell you what they could do with them!

LWN cakes OLPC XO laptops People using OLPC XO laptops Rusty Russell gives OLPC XO laptop to Jason White, a member of LUV John Dalton with OLPC XO laptop

Hence the LWN photo..

LCA2008 – Day 0!

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Well today was Day 0 of LCA2008 and I was there as a volunteer helping out with lugging things, putting banners up, folding shirts and working on the registration (( rego, in Australian )) desk.

I’ve also started uploading my photos from this to Flickr and it looks like I’m the first to do that (or at least tag them as such). 🙂

Day 1 registration opens at 8am and I’m going to do my best to be there early (Connex permitting)!

I am Australian

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The deed is done, the affirmation is made, photos were taken and I now have a nicely framed piece of paper that says I am an Australian citizen! I was really grateful that an elder from the Wurundjeri people came to offer a welcome to country to all of us new Australians, and I only wish that she had been able to stay to the end so I could thank her personally.

Chris the Australian! Chris and friends at refreshments after the citizenship ceremony

This has been a pretty special Australia Day for me, especially because as well as having my wonderful wife Donna with me we had some great people join us for the ceremony. Our thanks to Edna, Phil & Janette, Brian, Lev & Erika and Julian for taking the time to join us and to Iain for coming to visit us at home afterwards with beer and a copy of “Australian Zen“. 🙂

Taking the Myki ?

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So Melbourne is investigating an electronic tag based ticketing system for public transport called Myki (presumably meant to be pronounced My Key and not mickey), and in an interesting coincidence Bruce Schneier reports a successful attack against a Dutch ticketing system that’s about to be deployed:

The first reported attack was designed by two students at the University of Amsterdam, Pieter Siekerman and Maurits van der Schee. They analyzed the single-use ticket and showed its vulnerabilities in a report. They also showed how a used single-use card could be given eternal life by resetting it to its original “unused” state.

The second attack is a reverse engineering of the crypto algorithm through a physical attack on the circuitry which will be a jumping off point for further attacks, I guess.

I wonder how long it’ll take for the Melbourne system to be similarly compromised ?