Archive for November, 2008

Mr. Conroy, you are Talking Cock!

Keith November 13th, 2008

Talking Cock (v.): A Singaporean term meaning either to talk nonsense or engage in idle banter.
 - The Coxford Singlish Dictionary

Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of traveling to Singapore on a number of occasions to speak at conferences.  I have greatly enjoyed the experience - both the conferences, and wandering around Singapore as a tourist.  I have met some fantastic people there, and have greatly enjoyed the culture - and the food!

Singapore is a land of contrasts.  It is richly multicultural, with all public signage in four languages.  The population is predominantly Chinese, yet most of the public institutions are as British as they were before independence.  It has earned a reputation as a non-democratic nation, yet the country is alive with art and innovation, and not in the least like a totalitarian state.  I feel safer walking around the streets anywhere in Singapore than I do in some parts of Melbourne.

Some would like to portray Singapore as a place where freedom of speech is suppressed by the government, yet Singapore is now becoming increasingly open. One friend I have made in Singapore is Enrico Varella.  Enrico introduced me to a fantastic local web site - Talking Cock.

Talking Cock

This site bills itself as “Singapore’s premier satirical humour website”, and includes the delightful Coxford Singlish Dictionary.  (Singlish is the version of English spoken in Singapore.)  Talking Cock presents itself as apolitical: “Our main aim is to celebrate all the nonsensical parts of Singaporean life. We make fun of people in every sector, strata and profession in a completely democratic way.” Yet a sensitive government could easily take much of the satirical content on the site as criticism and take action against it.  The site also warns that “We have employed… language which might be upsetting to some and which some consider unsuitable for children.”

So what does this have to do with Mr. Conroy?

It appears that Australia’s Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy has proposed imposing a filtering system on the Internet.  This purports to be an attempt to shield children from inappropriate content.  A number of people have raised many problems with this.  At the very least, it would significantly slow Internet traffic for all Australians - some estimates put it as high as an 87% reduction in speed. If indeed it is primarily aimed at protecting children, then it also takes away from parents the responsibility of making their own decisions on what is suitable for their children.  There are many more arguments about this proposal - others have advanced these very eloquently.

My view on this is typified by the Talking Cock website.  Would this be one of the estimated 10,000 sites that our government is likely to block as “unsuitable”?  Would we block a site that the Singaporean government overtly allows?  If not initially, would sites such as this be blocked in future? Is it possible that our current or future governments would block sites that are deemed to be critical of the government of the day?  And if so, how would we ever know which sites were being blocked? 

This all seems like an attack on freedom of speech and access to information that is far too open to abuse.  Who will be making the decisions about which sites will be blocked, anyway?

If Talking Cock was determined to be a site that should be blocked, will my blog site also be blocked, because of this post?  As I also use this site for my business, would this expose the government to a liability for unfair restraint of trade?  Does the fact that the site you are looking at now is actually hosted on servers in the USA make me more or less likely to be subject to government scrutiny?

It seems that Mr. Conroy is attempting to use a simplistic industrial-age concept to address a very complex problem, and like most simple solutions, I believe that it is totally inappropriate.

Will we be able to say in future something like this statement on Talking Cock’s home page:

We donno how we’ve escaped the speech-smothering tentacles of the state, but we suspect it’s got a lot to do with you Singaporeans and your tremendous (and very touching) support for us since we began.

We are the champions

Keith November 6th, 2008

I am apparently now a “Digital Ministry Champion“. I have just posted my first article: To tweet or not to tweet.

This article is a summary of several previous posts on this site:

You’ve read about Social Media. You may have dipped a toe in the water here or there - or you may be up to your armpits. But have you tweeted yet? What’s all the buzz (or should that be “chorus”) about Twitter? Scared about making the commitment? I was not long ago, too… View full article

Also new to this article:

I have also found [Twitter] to be an amazing way to engage in “open note taking”.  I like to record notes when I attend seminars.  For some time, I have been taking notes on a PDA rather than on paper, as the notes are then synchronised with my PC, and available for blogging or other reuse.  This is great for me.

But with Twitter, I can take notes in just the same way, and everyone “following” me on Twitter can choose to tune in if the topic is of interest.  The notes are necessarily brief, which helps to keep them focused.  Some of the feedback I have received from this has been overwhelmingly positive, with some stating that it is just like being there themselves.  (This is something I will blog about later in more detail.)

… watch this space!

Clancy on video

Keith November 5th, 2008

Well, as promised threatened, a video of “Clancy of the Knowledge Flow” is now available on YouTube. (If you want to skip the introduction, the music starts at 1:40 into the video.)

Read more about this on the previous post here, or go directly to the full list of the lyrics.

Nostalgia - it ain’t what is used to be

Keith November 3rd, 2008

I have just been along to a reunion at my old school - Colac High School, in western Victoria.  I have only ever been to one of these before, and that was a long time ago.  All the more interesting this time, as this will be the last reunion at that campus, after something like 96 years of a school on that site.  A new, single campus is now taking over from the two original government schools - once the High and Tech schools.

It was an interesting experience.  Trying to recognise people after all these years was particularly interesting.  Some of the school-ground and buildings seemed almost identical to what I remember.  Some of the buildings do seem much smaller than I remember, too!  The old back-stage lighting control room in the hall was boarded up! I spent many happy hours there… Some of the locations brought back poignant memories, one of which I have written about here. 

I met a few of my classmates.  It was interesting comparing notes on the events of the intervening years.  I didn’t really ever engage with school much, or with many of the people there.  It was great to be able to effectively start off all over again with the people that I did meet. I may be in touch with some of them again.  I even met an old family friend, who had apparently once been a student there.

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