My Amalgamation

Like the local governments of QLD I've amalgamated my websites into a new single site that incorporates aspects of them all and will be able to provide further interactive aspects that I've been thinking of implementing for a while.

My new site currently has a blog and a section where I can share my University papers and other writings. I'm also going to include a photo gallery, some audio clips of my band and some solo recordings of myself. The University papers and other writings section is still being populated, however, as the blog is fully functional I will be shifting my attention from this blog to my new one.

So, finally, where is this new site to be found? Head on over to

www.simonives.info

and do leave a comment or email me and let me know what you think and possibly pass on some ideas and suggestions.

Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" and Windows Vista Ultimate

The following is a video of some of the features of Windows Vista Ultimate alongside an Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" install running Beryl. Watch the following clip and remember the price tags of the two operating systems...Windows Vista Ultimate is very expensive while Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" with Beryl is completely free! (and open source :)

Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" on my Compaq V3000

UPDATE: This website is no longer maintained. This guide has been migrated to simonives.info where you will find any updates. Please post any questions or comments at the new site.

This weekend I decided to take the plunge and install a Linux distro on my notebook PC. The reason I had not done so by now is because this particular notebook is well documented as being problematic under Linux, particularly the WiFi card as it is completely proprietary with no Linux drivers being available. I am now posting this using Linux while watching a DVD over a wireless network protected with WPA, the DVD is stored on a Windows XP machine running NTFS...I must have done something right. The following is a guide as to how I got Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” running with full functionality (actually better but more of that later) on a Compaq V3000 (V3118AU) model notebook.

Installation.

After downloading the Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” iso and burning it on a CD I booted into the live distro. If you're using the same model notebook as me, or a Broadcom WiFi chipset, you'll notice in the boot procedure that there are two errors. The first error says 'PCI BUS BUG #81 [49435000]' and the second says something like 'error 983 with BCM43xx'. I've no idea what the first error means and I doubt that it's important, I'm still getting this error now and my system is functioning well. The second error is the one that we need to address. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” comes with a generic BCM43xx (Broadcom WiFi) driver but it lacks the firmware files so fails to load. I'll address these two errors later.

Once the live CD boots up you can play around if you like or just move right on to the installation. I put 10GB aside for the install so just followed the instructions on installing Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” into the free space. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” installed without any problems and I booted into it fine, with the same errors as mentioned before. To my surprise the only hardware not working 'out of the box' was the Broadcom WiFi card and the audio. In fact, I discovered that I have a working Bluetooth and IR system (tested both) that didn't show up under WinXP.

WiFi

The first step was to get the WiFi working as I could then work on everything else. As the wired LAN was functioning I plugged into my router and downloaded NDISWrapper (I did first attempt to just add the firmware to the BCM43xx driver but it took too much effort and didn't function stably) -> System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager -> Search for NDISWrapper, click the check box and then Apply. Before you proceed make sure you have the Windows driver for the Broadcom card. You need to extract the .sys and .inf files from it. I placed mine on my Desktop.
Now pull up a terminal and type 'sudo rmmod bcm43xx'. This unloads the Broadcom driver from the system.
Type 'sudo rmmod ndiswrapper' to unload any instances of ndiswrapper that my be running. Type 'sudo ndiswrapper -i filename.inf' where filename.inf is the location of the driver, mine was ~/Desktop/filename.inf.
Type 'sudo ndiswrapper -l' and if the driver installed properly then you'll get a nice little list saying so.
To load NDISWrapper at startup type 'sudo ndiswrapper -m'.
Restart the computer and there you go, a working Broadcom WiFi. Mine picked up my WiFi from inside my main house and my neighbours WiFi signal too. I also get better signal strength than under WinXP. Also, I connected fine with WPA encryption thanks to the Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” network manager.

AUDIO

The audio was a hassle as the card and driver were loading correctly at startup, I just got no audio. The first step I took, now that I had WiFi, was to update Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn”, this apdated ALSA. The correct driver for my hardware is the intel8x0 so I entered 'gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base' which opens the alsa configuration file. I then updated the snd-hda-intel entry to my driver, snd-hda-intel8x0 and rebooted. While the computer was just starting I went into the BIOS and disabled the audio options there. When Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” started back up I had audio.

VIDEO

Strictly speaking the video works with Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” with no mods. However, if you want 2D and 3D acceleration you need to install the nVidia driver. This couldn't be easier. All you need to do is select -> System -> Administration -> Restricted Drivers Manager and hit go, if you have a net connection that is. Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” downloads the current nVidia driver and installs it. After a restart you'll have full featured graphics.

MISCELLANEOUS

The shortcut keys on my notebook all worked out of the box. The mute key and the volume keys work better than in WinXP as there is no delay in their actions. There is actually one key that appears not to work, the media centre key. This key actually does work, it is just not assigned any action, I assigned mine to open xmms. The touchpad is turned off on startup but if you have no mouse all you need to do is to hit the touchpad power key. Everything else works a treat. The two inbuilt microphones work well, the firewire and usb have no issues. My USB drives all auto mount and the five in one card reader works well.

OTHER APPLICATIONS

Some other applications that I have found useful with this Ubuntu “Fesity Fawn” distro have been:
Thunderbird is a powerful open source email client. I use Thunderbird on WinXP and copied the profile folder over to my local Thunderbird directory. Now I've got all my mails and filters etc.
Beryl is a window manager with a difference. For the best GUI experience you'll get try Beryl...if you think Win Vista has good visuals then you'll be blown out of the water by this.
ALLTray is an app that will let you minimise any application to the task bar. I'm having troubles with ALLTray and Beryl though.
XMMS is a multimedia player that just works. Ubuntu "Feisty Fawn" does come with Rhythmbox but I just prefer XMMS as it is small, has many plugins and I've been using it for years.
Wine is an acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator and allows (some) Windows based apps to run under Linux.
Azureus is a bit torrent client.
Bluefish Editor is a web site creation tool that works with all the major web based programming languages such as PHP/MySQL, HTML/XHTML etc.
Audacity is an audio recording and editing environment. It's a fantastic tool.
Filezilla is a full featured ftp client from Mozilla.
Gnome Baker is a CD/DVD creation environment.

So if you think that Linux isn't for notebooks then think again. At least with Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” you can have a fully featured Linux distro that will work on even the most proprietary of systems.

P.S. This is my 100th post so happy birthday to me!

UPDATE: This website is no longer maintained. This guide has been migrated to simonives.info where you will find any updates. Please post any questions or comments at the new site.

Busy Week

What a week it's been. I've just finished drafting a letter to the Social Security Review Tribunal to appeal a decision regarding some money I think I'm owed...fingers crossed.

But what's really been consuming my time has been my new website I'm working on. You'll find the test site HERE if you feel inclined to take a look but it's not up-to-date and many of the features aren't working Live. I'm really testing everything well before I upload it. My intention is to update the test site every Friday at midnight AEST so, for example, all the revisions and additions I completed today (Saturday) won't be posted until next Friday.

Updates to the test site this week include:

• A new site-wide theme.
• A new Blog that incorporates this theme.
• All new MySQL database design for faster and more reliable access.
• A search feature in the header - currently searches the blog from the blog page and searches google from the home page.
• New PHP 5.0 page design that allows for faster site-wide updating.
• Implemented a neat little footnote script in the blog.
  

Updates that missed this week's review:

• The new graphical navbar missed addition this week as I'm still tweaking the a:hover state of the buttons. The new navbar replaces the Photos link with Media.
  
• I'm still using a separate Internet Explorer style sheet until I'm comfortable with the one I'm using on my localhost.
• The Uni Paper's database is not live so the cool home page I'm working on on my localhost isn't available. The home page on my localhost so far includes a most recent Blog Post section and a most recent Uni Paper section.

What I'm working on this week:

• Getting the style sheets to a single sheet for ie and other browsers.
• Getting all my font styles the way I want. I'm open to suggestions regarding the font colours/faces in the body.
• Writing the PHP code for the Uni Papers pages (expected to take more than a week).
• Tweaking the Home page code that displays the most recent entries for Blog Posts and Uni Paper's. Uni Paper's is the tricky one as I have five separate tables that need to be referenced with the most recent entry amongst the five being displayed. I've no idea how I'll achieve this at the moment so I'm open to suggestions.

Once all of that is completed I'll move on to populating the Uni Papers database and creating the PHP search files for the Uni Paper's site so that I'll have a functional Uni Paper's Site, a functional Blog Site, and a functional Home page.

After all of this I intend to move on to creating the media site where I'll host photos, videos, audio and some other papers and documents that I've written such as my Beginning the Tabla book. I'm not even thinking of how I'm going to lay this site out yet so don't ask, although, like above, I'm open to suggestions.

Orientalism in Australia: the Middle Eastern Mongrel

This morning I was enjoying myself at one of our local markets when my wife and I overheard some fellow market goers talking about a shopkeepers dog. Being the eavesdroppers that we are, my wife and I adamantly listened in. This group, the fellow market goers (I'll call them a group, I assume that's an appropriate collective noun for market patrons), some middle aged to elderly ladies, were discussing 'what was in the dog'. By this they were attempting to discern what 'breeds' of dog were present in this apparent mongrel. As an aside, the dog in question was a very healthy and happy looking creature.

My wife and I were unable to listen in to the entire conversation as the group moved along but this got us talking. My wife is a Sociology/Community Development major so she's quite interested in a lot of the same concepts as I. We were both of the same opinion that this was a case of 'othering' or 'orientalism'. I put it this way: The group attempted to put the dog into a 'class', in a sense labeling the dog. This then allows them to discuss the value of the dog in relation to other designated 'classes', maybe in relation to the 'class' we would call 'purebred'. From this division of 'classes' and value distinctions we are left with a social system created entirely by the observer.

It is easy to observe a correlate 'racialisation' in the contemporary world, particularly Australia at present. We (I use this term loosely) assign characteristics to this 'other' no matter how diverse they may possibly be. I'll use the example of the Middle East here as it is particularly relevant. Middle Eastern people have been racialised in Australia in a very similar way to mongrel dogs. Despite their diverse social systems, religions, and ethnicities, they are lumped in to a socially constructed mongrel class. As Scott Poynting, Greg Noble, Paul Tabar and Jock Collins show in their recent book Bin Laden in the Suburbs: Criminalising the Arab Other (2004, p.49), 'Middle Eastern [has] become conflated with Arab, Arab with Muslim, Muslim with rapist, rapist with gang, gang with terrorist, terrorist with 'boat people', 'boat people' with barbaric, and so on...'. Now while all of these characteristics may not be applied to all Middle Eastern people all of the time most of them are. It is an interesting exercise to ask people on the street to define the Middle East. Most people point to a geographical area on a map, most of these people, however, disagree where the boundaries are. It is interesting, or perhaps sad, to see this though; many people will include India in their Middle East map and many Australians, and I can only assume people of other nationalities too, are loath to include Israel, although most do if they are pointing to a map that isn't labeled. You see Israel is geographically part of the Middle East but is ethnically separate, or so they say...(Maybe more on this another time)

But the entire Middle East is a diverse area. There have been, and continue to be, numerous religions present and the diverse social systems can be quite contrasting. Even throwing the label Muslim around is part of the same problem, mongreling this Middle Eastern other. The Middle East is a 'Western' Orientalist experiment gone wrong; because the diversity was never recognised, even to this day, the Middle East is simply a mongrel.

Like the mongrel dog at the market today, the Middle East and the many and diverse people who reside there, and the many and diverse people who reside here in Australia, Australian citizens...people born here, people with Middle Eastern heritage, will never be fully valued. By making this statement I am in no way claiming that people who are from the Middle East, or who's ancestors were/are, are in any way to be thought of as a dog, I am simply saying that Australian society treats them that way, as a mongrel. We have created a single class of people from a diverse social group and assigned them characteristics that many of them have never possessed. Australia created the Middle Eastern other in our national psyche, it is not an organic feature of the world. Australia has created the Middle Eastern Mongrel.

The Neverending Story

...
"Something has happened in Moldymoor" said the will-o'-the-wisp haltingly, "something impossible to understand. Actually, it's still happening. It's hard to describe--the way it began was--well, in the east of our country there's a lake--that is, there was a lake--Lake Foamingbroth we called it. Well, the way it began was like this. One day Lake Foamingbroth wasn't there anymore--it was gone. See?"

"You mean it dried up?" Gluckuk inquired.

"No," said the will-o'-the-wisp. "Then there'd be a dried-up lake. But there isn't. Where the lake used to be there's nothing--absolutely nothing. Now do you see?"

"A hole?" the rock chewer grunted.

"No, not a hole," said the will-o'-the- wisp despairingly. "A hole, after all, is something. This is nothing at all."

The three other messengers exchanged glances.

"What--hoo--does this nothing look like?" asked the night-hob.

"That's just what's so hard to describe," said the will-o'-the -wisp unhappily. "it doesn't look like anything. It's--it's like--oh, there's no word for it."
...

(taken from Ende, M 1983, The Neverending Story, trans. Manheim, R, Penguin, London, p. 19)


Fan's of The Neverending Story will enjoy the following story.

LINK

Richard Rorty

As most of us are now aware, Richard Rorty, the eminent American philosopher and Professor of comparative literature at Stanford University, died this week (June 8). I'm not going to write anything here as whatever I could, or perhaps could not, write just couldn't do the man justice. What I will direct the reader to, however, is the fantastic program The Philosopher's Zone that this week dedicated an entire episode to Rorty. The presenter, Alan Saunders, and Paul Redding, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, discuss Rorty's life and works. The entire transcript is now available and for the next four weeks the audio is available to either listen to live or download. LINK.

Downer Keeps Fingers Firmly in Big Brother's Pie

The crisis in Darfur has been occurring, in one form or another, since the fourteenth century when Islam was introduced as the 'state' religion. Conflicts ensued from this right up 'till Britain, yes Britain, incorporated the Darfur region into neighbouring Sudan in 1916. This just led to further problems, the same sort of problems that occurred in other 'created' nations, problems such as economic marginalisation and no right to self determination. In 1983 and 1984 there was a major famine in Darfur which killed an estimated 95,000 people. Because of this, the then government was overthrown.

Move forward to 2003 and we find ourselves in the early stages of the current conflict. Two groups, The Justice and Equality Movement and The Sudan Liberation Movement, made the claim that the government was favouring Arabs and mistreating non-Arabs. This led to an attack on an area known as Golo by a group called The Darfur Liberation Front which, in turn, led to an attack by The Sudan Liberation Army on an area known as Al-Fashir. This humiliated the Sudanese government and what has resulted has been widely called 'The Darfur Conflict' with an estimated 400,000 people killed to date (2003-2007), among many other human rights abuses.

This week the Sudanese government agreed to let the United Nations send in peace keepers to try and diffuse the conflict. Now whether UN peace keepers are the best method to end this conflict is not what's at issue here. This is a major step forward with the Sudanese government recognising, internationally, that there is a fundamental problem that needs addressing and that it (the Sudanese government) cannot fix the problem on its own (it is widely acknowledged that the Sudanese government is killing and abusing more people than the various rebel groups).

Now today (15 June) we have Alexander Downer claiming that Australia cannot contribute to the UN mission...the 'numbers just don't add up'. What damn numbers does he need to see? Is not 400,000 dead people and uncounted human rights abuses not large enough? We certainly didn't need such large numbers to go and 'help' the Americans in their wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor did we need such numbers to keep our friends in power in the Solomon Islands.

No, the only numbers that Downer could possibly be referring to are financial numbers. They are the only numbers that are lower in relation to the other conflicts we've either participated in or helped start. It is simply not profitable enough for Downer's government to engage in this conflict.

Believe me, I was a little surprised when I heard this news as participating in a UN managed peace keeping force aimed at preventing death and human rights abuses, deaths and abuses that are actually documented, would seem to be a politically smart move by a government that is facing certain defeat later in the year. I, naively it seems, assumed that helping innocent people escape from certain death and/or abuse would gain widespread public sympathy for the government. Perhaps in the elections due later in the year the coalition government is going to pull one of those alterity campaigns again. You know, the ones where the government claims that we need to fear the 'other'. We know how successful these campaigns are, our government is well practiced at pulling them off. Maybe we can't help the UN because African's will be the new Iraqis in this election, the 'other' that needs to be feared. Surely the government can't both help and slander the same people.

I would wager, however, that had Australia's big brother, you know the one, the Yanks, had said 'we're going into Sudan to help those God-forsaken Darfur residents, want'a lend a hand?', little John, along with Downer, would have almost ejaculated at the offer. We'd be in there quicker than the gleam that that appears in Howard's eye when Bush's name is mentioned. This is one of the reasons I chose to keep my New Zealand citizenship when I became an Aussie. You've no idea how embarrassing it is saying to people overseas that you're from Australia.

Islam and a New Mufti for Australia

Islam arrived in Australia long before Christianity did, it was a mere twist of fate that Christianity became the dominant religion in the country. More than two hundred years ago Islamic fishermen from nearby Indonesia visited the north-western coastline of Australia mingling with Australia's Indigenous inhabitants. Even to this day there are words and concepts in north-western Indigenous Australian languages that are distinctly Islamic.

Move forward a couple of hundred years to just after the second world war. During this time there was a great deal of immigration to Australia and one of those immigrants was the then twenty three year old Fehmi from Lebanon. In 1957 Fehmi and a small band of friends formed the first Islamic prayer group in Melbourne which eventually led to the formation of the Islamic Society of Victoria which, in 1976, appointed Fehmi as Imam. Fehmi's first project was fund raising for a large Islamic centre in Melbourne's north, a place called Preston. To this day Fehmi has run the Preston Mosque although Fehmi is now more reverently known as Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam.

Some of you may remember earlier in the year there was created an Australian National Council of Imams who are most well known for their position on the then Mufti, Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali . They effectively told the Sheikh that his tenure as Mufti of Australia was up. Today this same council, despite their earlier statement, reappointed Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali as the Mufti of Australia. Sheik Taj el-Din Al Hilali , however, turned down the position instead declaring that Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam should be the next Mufti of Australia. So, for the next two years, Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam will be known as Mufti Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam, the Mufti of Australia.

It will be interesting to see the nation's response to the new Mufti, someone who has resided in this country for longer than many other people and someone who has undoubted talent in community building. Gary Bouma, Professor of Sociology at Monash University, claims that 'He is very able to present Australia to the Muslims and Muslims to Australia. He's been very good at presenting these two communities to each other, in a way that promotes co-operation, promotes understanding, promotes mutual interest and reduces fear.' Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam certainly seems to be a very good choice for the Mufti of Australia, I doubt that anyone else with his qualities could be found in this country.

Perhaps the greatest concern with this appointment is the new Mufti's age. Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam is currently 77 years old. I've already heard criticism claiming that due to his age he will be out of touch with the community, both the local Islamic community and the wider national community. Do remember though that Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam played a very important role in shaping the Islamic community of Australia and is well known for his work in interfaith and faith/secular dialogue. If anyone has any doubt as to his credentials then turn to the Order of Australia; Sheikh Fehmi Naji El-Imam was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to multiculturalism and to the Muslim community, particularly through the promotion of community harmony and tolerance and to multi-faith understanding. I don't think that a better man could have been given the job.

How 'Humane' is Your City?

How 'humane' is your city? Well if you live in the United States of America you may be one step closer to finding this out. It's a shame that we Australian's don't have anything similar to go by, although I'm fairly certain that all our cities are 'in-humane', however, the Humane Society of the United States has undertaken a study to determine the most 'humane' cities in the USA. You can find the study HERE, and, if you're not inclined to follow the link, San Francisco came out on top and Chicago came up with the wooden spoon.

But is this study accurate or even necessary; is it even logically valid? Now, I'm not pretending to have access to the methodologies employed in the procedures of this study nor am I claiming that I even have access to the uncollated information, what I am claiming, however, is that according to the Humane Society's published information (link above) there are quite a few holes. It seems that there were only twelve criteria identified for a city to be measured against which all seem quite emotive in their focus. Quantity of 'seal protectors' for example or 'puppies in windows'. Euphemism is a general tool for hiding inadequacy, not something that an international organisation should be promoting.

Perhaps the most fundamental issue, however, is in the use of the word 'humane'. What is meant by this term? Is it relative? How do we judge its application appropriately? I think that the term 'humane' is logically inconsistent and is nothing more than an overt expression of prejudice and chauvinism. Most critics of the Humane Society seem to focus on some inconsistent claim like that we should not be treating animals 'humanely' because that would entail us treating them as if they were humans. This, I think too, is illogical, prejudiced and chauvinistic. Why devalue an animal's uniqueness by equating it with a human? Humans and most other animals are innately different and these differences are, necessarily, irreconcilable; they will likely remain so until someone, at least, answers Nagel's question 'what is it like to be a bat?'.

No, my hang up is in the question 'what is it like to be human?' Obviously the term 'humane' is to be seen in relation to the term 'human' but what do we mean when we use the term 'human'? From a brief exploration of the Humane Society of America's website, focusing on mission statements etc., it seems that what it is to be human is the possession of reason. I completely agree! This seems to be where the the Humane Society gets confused (Maybe they aren't confused however there are no documents on their website pointing otherwise). Their statement of Principles and Beliefs includes '...[w]e seek to forge a lasting and comprehensive change in human consciousness of and behavior toward all animals in order to prevent animal cruelty, exploitation, and neglect, and to protect wild habitats and the entire community of life...' So, to the Humane Society, the term 'humane' means a procedure of changing reason to make it more in line with a Moral Universalist's perspective. This universal morality places equal weight on the rights of animals as to the rights of humans.

I'm not going to make a claim here either for or against Moral Universalism however the Humane Society really needs to go over their statements and get some things straight. If I'm going to argue for a universal morality and a universal morality that limits reason, because reason will have no place in this universal morality as what is and isn't morally valuable is already decided, then how can I call this humane? Of course, as I've mentioned, the Humane Society seem to equate the term 'humane' to such a definition, one in which reason becomes limited, but this is not, at least in my opinion, what it is like to be human. Human = ability to reason not I will tell you what you can and can not reason about.

If you're going to remain logically consistent the please remove the term 'humane' from your name.

Ustad Rafiuddin Sabri - Tabla Solo - Teental

This tabla player is from Delhi and is simply amazing. In this recording the audio and video are slightly out of sync, as with most recordings of drut laya, but this doesn't detract from the quality. The timing is spot on and and Sabriji has such control over his fingers, wrists and, in effect, his entire upper body. Playing in drut laya for any duration of time is difficult for anybody!

Chain Reaction

How difficult is it to boil a bucket of water? I wasn't certain until I found this interesting video while browsing the net today. Have a look for yourselves.

Body and Mind Essay

I received my result for my Body and Mind essay on Homunculi-Headed Robots and I received a Distinction. While usually I'd kick and scream over such a grade I'm not going to this time. The reason you may ask, I'm not that happy with it myself. You see, because I had a holiday and didn't get as much work (Uni work that is) done while I was away my essay suffered. So in this case a Distinction is fine. If anyone cares to read the essay you'll find it on my Uni Papers Site under the Philosophy heading or, only if you're lazy, click HERE.

P.S. I've also uploaded a Buddhism essay on Mahayana to my Uni Papers Site too. I haven't updated the Religion page yet but if anyone's keen to get a sneak preview you can download it by clicking HERE.

The 'Terrorists' are loosing

According to <--THIS--> the 'Terrorists' are finally loosing popularity. Apparently their leader is 'stubborn and unwilling to admit his mistakes'. Take a look for yourselves if you're interested.

How Do You Organise Information?

With the amount of information available on the net now browser based bookmarks just don't cut it anymore. Even with the widespread use of broadband services page load times and navigational issues still cause many upsets. For example, every morning I like to check the weather forecast, my calendar, various news sites, my blogs for comments, other's blogs for new posts or replies to comments that I've left, pod cast updates, my university discussion boards and my various email accounts. It is easy to see how all of this could fill up a lot of time.

So how does one manage all of this? For a while now I've been using iGoogle but I was growing tired of the lack of features and customisability that someone like me, a non-programmer, could accomplish. Where I turned was to netvibes. So what do these (free) services offer that can reduce the time for me to finish all the tasks listed above? Let me see if I can describe it for you.

Both sites are relatively similar with both offering customisable home pages with tabs where dynamic content can be stored. For example, on my netvibes page I have ten tabs of sorted information. These tabs are Home, News, Personal Blogs, Friends Blogs, Philosophy Blogs, Religion Blogs, University, Pod Casts, MySpaces and Mail. I think you get the idea as to what content I place under each tab. Let's look at a few of these tabs so you get the idea of how such a service operates.

The News tab contains custom 'modules', little boxes that display dynamic content, in columns. In each 'module' I subscribe to a different news feed, a dynamic process that 'feeds' the news content to my 'modules'. The module then displays the news headlines as links which you can then follow for the entire story. iGoogle and netvibes handle this linking process differently but I'll discuss that more below.

The Personal Blogs tab displays 'modules' just like the other tabs but link to the 'feeds' from my personal blogs. I have this tab configured with two columns, the column on the left has my posts and the column on the right has comments on my posts. The other blog tabs are configured in the same manner. This way I can look at all of the posts and all of the comments on all of the blogs I'm interested in from a single page without having to load all of the individual graphics etc.

The pod cast tab has, you guessed it, 'modules' that subscribe to pod casts. What I like about netvibes over iGoogle with the pod cast subscriptions is that with netvibes I can opt to download or stream the audio/video from the module itself, no funny business.

Lastly the mail tab includes 'modules' that link to all of my email accounts, gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and POP accounts etc. I can see if I have any new emails, who they are from and their subject lines all from one page. A huge time saver.

Now, why have I opted for netvibes over iGoogle? Well, many reasons actually. On the tabs of the netvibes page a little number will display indicating how many unread feeds are present in that tab. For example, if I have 12 unread emails the email tab will have a number 12, the same goes for all the other tabs. Also, netvibes is so much more customisable. There are more themes, more 'module' options, more tab options, a great wizard for creating your own 'modules' and to add 'modules' you don't need to leave your page. iGoogle just can't compete with this.

I mentioned above about links to entire news stories or complete blog entries etc. and this is something that netvibes really have sorted. When the user clicks a link in netvibes you don't leave the page. The entire blog entry or news story etc. appears in a new 'module' in your page. What's more is that an archive of stories/feeds from the blog, news site etc. also appears so you can read other entries without leaving your page. Of course you can navigate to the blog, news site etc. page if you so desire.

There are also many more options that I haven't mentioned but I'd rather you take a look for your self. You'll find netvibes HERE and iGoogle HERE.

US 'Terrorists' hate Iraqis

Reading this mornings news <--link--> I was shocked to see the results of a survey of American military troops (hereby known as terrorists) on their attitudes towards Iraqis. The survey claims that one tenth of these terrorists have mistreated Iraqi civilians at some point in their 'service' and that one third condone torture to protect the life a one of their fellow terrorists.

Now this survey is credible, it was conducted by the terrorists' own mental health advisory team. This seems to be a common tactic of terrorist organisations, such as the United States Military, claiming that they don't value the life of any 'other'; 'you're either with us or against us' the leader of these terrorists has been quoted as saying. Fear is a fundamental aspect of terrorist politics.

So what else did this survey uncover? Well, more than 50% of the terrorists would not report a fellow terrorist for unethical behavior. This is shocking because of the limited definition of ethics that the terrorists already hold. If the terrorist holds 50% of the ethical concepts that I hold as, in fact, being ethical, and more than 50% of these terrorists would not report an unethical act then I can rest assured that less than 25% of the acts that I would deem unethical (and most other people too, I would assume) are currently being reported.

I'd love to post more of the survey's findings but the damn terrorists have censored it. It seems that just letting a little of their insanity out of the box creates more fear than if we knew the depths of it. Exploring in the dark is always more fearful than in the daylight but lets hope that this small torchlight of information helps to uncover the breadth of the terrorists' psychoses.

Centrelink is a Bastard

That's right, a bastard. Maybe not in a literal sense but that organisation has certainly pissed me off this week. For those readers not familiar with Australian social security have a look <--HERE--> for some background.

For a while now I've been receiving Disability Support Pension for an injury that prevents me from doing a lot. Not too long ago I received notification that the pension I was receiving was up for review so I attended the review interview and, to my disgust, found out that it was one of little Johnny Howard's neo-liberal 'get people off of their arses and supporting themselves' drives. I was asked, basically, to show cause as to why I should continue to receive the pension. The Centrelink officer in charge of my case gave me some forms for my doctor to fill out. No problem? Big problem! My doctor had recently retired so I was expected to see a doctor who had no knowledge of my disability. Naturally he was reluctant to fill out the form so just indicated that he was unsure.

This wasn't good enough for Centrelink who needed more information so they gave me a whopping whole month to find it. You see, neo-liberalism is all about removing the individual from this sort of process; there is no scope for my claim to be given 'special consideration', I am the same as every other number on the Centrelink database. Neo-liberals really need to discover the difference between qualitative and quantitative. Anyhow, I inquired about what would happen to me if I was deemed ineligible for the pension. My case manager happily informed me that I would be placed on another payment that I was eligible for. As I'm a full-time student I wasn't too worried at this point as I would be entitled to a student benefit; still, not the pension. You see I needed some 'special consideration' as my treating doctor (funnily enough 'treating doctor' is the name of the form I needed filled out. Absurd that I don't actually need my treating doctor to fill it out) had retired and the orthopedic outpatients department of the State hospital that I was receiving specialist treatment from had a two year wait list.

Sadly, I decided that I'd just accept my fate (although I'll never vote Liberal now no matter how rich I become John!) and be transfered over to Austudy. This is where the real problems began. I wasn't transfered! I went to the bank last Thursday to make a withdrawal and discovered that my bank account was empty! I hurried on over to Centrelink to see what was going on and was promptly informed that I was no longer a client of theirs; I had been canceled. This was a shock, I was supposed to be transfered, were my study details not apparent? Even so, why hadn't I been transfered to Newstart, the payment for the unemployed? After two days of being shrugged off between person to person, department to department I was informed that I wasn't to be transfered over to another payment, I never was. It turns out that my previous case manager had been lying to me; this never happens. I was informed that I had to reapply for a payment and that this process takes 21 days. I explained that that would mean that I would have no income for six weeks all up but, as mentioned above, neo-liberalism is unkind to the individual. My appeals fell on deaf ears.

So this is where I currently lay; poor and pissed off. Centrelink has a fiduciary duty to its clients, of which I was one (and, fingers crossed, soon to be again), that was flatly abused. I am in the process of making formal complaints about this situation to all levels of Centrelink management and all levels of Government but I'm not hopeful for a positive outcome. Frankly I just don't mean enough. I'll post all my letters of complaint here, and any replies that I don't expect to come, with the tag 'Centrelink Bastard if anyone cares to follow my predicament. It'd be nice to get paid soon though, I've got text books to buy for next semester. It's interesting how Centrelink is so happy to jeopardise a situation that will remove its clients from welfare dependency in the long term for such short term triviality.

Home

Home at last!

What a trip home that was; the flights were OK but the train journeys were a nightmare! To begin with the train from Udaipur to Mathura was over booked and we were wait listed, likewise with the Mathura to Delhi train. By the time the tickets arrived we had been allocated seats however. But this is only where the problems began.

When we seated ourselves on the Udaipur to Mathura train we were pleasantly surprised; the train was new and seemed quite comfortable. There were few people on the train, which did seem a little strange as just a few days prior it was overbooked, and there were two women and a small child sitting opposite us who seemed quite friendly. What a mistake that assumption was. These two women insisted on staying awake for the entire train journey as they were worried about missing their stop. They chatted as loud and fast as only Indian women can and insisted on leaving the light on in our compartment. The chatting wasn't too bad as both Craig and I had earplugs but as I had the upper birth the fluro light was only 20cm from my head. Try sleeping 20cm from a fluro on an Indian train; damn near impossible!

As expected we arrived at Mathura station rather tired and as we had a 12 hour wait for our connecting train we decided to store our bags in the railway's cloak room and head to nearby Vrindavana for the day. But more problems. As our bag's zips did not all lock the railway's cloakroom refused to store them. We were faced with a dilemma, either sit at Mathura railway station for 12 hours or take our bags into Vrindavana with us. We didn't like either option. Mathura is a dirty city, to say it as nicely as possible, and the reason we wanted to go to Vrindavana was so we could go and visit the many temples as the day we had arrived was Chandana Yatra so it was extra auspicious. We decided that we'd employ the services of a rickshaw walah to find us a uber cheap hotel on the way to Vrindavana where we could store our bags for the day. We settled on the third hotel we stopped at called the 'Hotel Braj', very original I know, where we got by far the dirtiest room I have ever seen for 200 rupees. Fine for storing our bags though.

So from here we made our way to Vrindavana which was well worth the trip. We visited ISKCON's Krishna Balarama Mandira for all the morning programs and ran into our friend Hari Bhakti Dey who happened to have been in Vrindavana for the last few months. After the morning program we went into Loi Bazar to by some gifts for our family. I was pretty damn tired at this time so I just made a commitment to go straight to the shops where I'd made successful purchases before. After an hour of battling the Vrindavana heat I had four shirts for Jodie and India, three carvachas for Jodie and India, A set of whomper catatels for Vishalini, and 19 sets of Tulsi malas. Yep, 19 sets. The price was 20 rupees a piece or 100 rupees for the lot. I said that I wanted five pieces so how about I get five for 20 rupees. This was obviously illogical as the price for five was 100 rupees, five 20s being 100. I pointed out that the salesman would make a greater profit by selling my five for 50 rupees as otherwise I would by all 19 for 100 rupees but he wouldn't budge so I just took the 19 pieces.

After Loi Bazar we went back to the MVT guest house where Hari Bhakti was staying with his wife, Sharmi, and their two children. When we arrived though we discovered that they were out to lunch. Not to be deterred though we opted to find a nice shady tree in the grounds of the MVY, the nicest place in Vrindavana, and have a little nap, being tired and all. We found a great little spot and curled up for a sleep, which unfortunately came slow and short, for me at least. In about an hour we heard Sharmi's voice so we got up in a hurry and rushed over to Bhakti and Sharmi's place. What a great decision that was, their place had two AC units, fresh water and a sitar. Comfort for the remainder of the day. It was great to see Bhakti and Sharmi's children who are just gorgeous. When it got to five PM, however, we had to say our goodbyes and find a rickshaw to take us the hour long trip back to Mathura to get our bags and then onto the railway station for the final train back to Delhi. We were silently looking forward to this last train as we were to be in the AC section.

Well we got our bags without a hitch and were dropped off at the railway station with little fuss. Just a one hour wait 'till the train was due to arrive. After plenty of chai and a few puris and subji that Craig enjoyed our train arrived. We promptly asked where the AC section was but as I glanced at our ticket, which was poorly printed, I discovered that we were to be in the non-AC chair section. No worries we thought, only two hours or so to Delhi. Our minds were soon changed though when we found our seats and, more importantly, what was under them. Vomit. That's right, little kid vomit. There was a sick kid opposite us who had been eating large amounts of junk food and the movements of the train had coerced his stomach into surrendering it's contents. The train was packed and most definitely uncomfortable. We eventually arrived at Nizamuddin station in Delhi, headed straight for a taxi (we weren't going to take a rickshaw this last leg of the journey after these two train trips) and directed the driver to Parharganj. Once in Parharganj we ran (well almost ran) for the cleanest hotel we knew of, the Cottage Yes Please, where we secured a clean AC room with pay TV and a fantastic bathroom. We didn't mind forking out the 900 rupees at this point either. What a sleep I had that night!

The next day was our flight home, well the first of two as we had to stop in Singapore again. I spent until 2pm sleeping and watching pay TV. I watched the snooker world championships and also a bit of a program called House that I'd never seen before and I doubt I'll take the effort too again. After 2pm I went and did a little last minute shopping. I started at the shoe shop to pick up some sandals for Jodie. I wasn't worried about getting the wrong size as Jodie had previously given my a cut out of her foot, something the shoe salesmen thought was hilarious. I also headed over to Janpatha to see if I could find some particular skirts for Jodie and too my surprise I found them, and for a good price too.

After finalising our packing we hopped into our taxi for the airport. What a trip that was. Our taxi driver was great! He insisted on singing for us the entire trip and was so happy. He was eager for any tips on his driving and wanted to know our opinion on his driving ability and also his English. Both were quite good. Craig took a video of him so I'll see if I can get a copy to upload here. On arrival at the airport I gave the driver a 100rupee tip, he was pretty pleased with this. No dramas at the airport, there rarely is in India. Craig and I just found a comfy seat and watched the cricket while drinking mochachinos.

The first flight was fine. We were flying Air India to Singapore and the plane had about 30 people on board. The meal was great and the movie wasn't too bad either; Don, staring Shah Rukh Khan. Singapore wasn't too bad either. Craig and I were expecting some sort of interrogation as when we came through a couple of weeks prior we were stiffly interrogated about our intentions in Singapore and flatly refused entry. We talked the guy around that time but we weren't sure what to expect this time. As we weren't leaving the airport this time there were no dramas of this kind. Craig got himself some medicine from one of the many airport pharmacies and we used up the remainder of the credit one the phone card he'd bought last time. We got on our flight here with no dramas but this one was full.

We flew with Singapore Air from Singapore to Brisbane but we didn't get to sit near each other this time. Our meals were wrong again (last time we went with Singapore Air they gave us chicken, apparently chicken is vegetarian in Singapore!) But we were lucky enough that they had a couple of spare strict veg meals. I settled into a game of Mario brothers while waiting for the plane to refuel and had a little chat to the guy next to me. This flight wasn't too bad other than the bad turbulence just outside of Singapore and the tight stuffy conditions. I watched three movies on this trip, one was OK, the other two terrible. I saw A Night at the Museum, Casino Royale, & Fearless. Probably a waste of time but I had nothing else to do.

Customs was incredibly quick and caused no fuss with the items that both Craig and I declared. What was on our minds, however, was who was going to be at the airport to collect us. I'd organised for my mother to pick us up but she pulled out a couple of days prior and we hadn't been able to confirm with anyone else. If there was no one there we could catch the bus but that would take hours and after so much travel we were hoping that this would not be necessary. On entering the arrivals lounge we were overjoyed to see our friends Keith and Adam waiting for us; what a relief. Keith drove us straight home, dropping Craig off first and hen myself. I managed to have a little rest and now I find myself here.

Time to start getting back into my Uni work again. I sent some work off while I was in India but I'm not sure if it was received, dodgy PCs there, that's for sure. Anyhow, I'll sort that out in the morning.

Some Randon Pics

Craig on Suresh's bike.

Singapore haircut

Concert Two

Here are some new photos from last night at the Shiv Niwas again. (15/04/2007)

Concerts

These pics are from the Shiv Niwas gradens in the city palace Udaipur. Craig played yaman on the sitar in tin taal. (13/04/2007)

India Pictures

Views from our room

Udaipur

Finally a decent PC!

We're now in Udaipur which is just amazing. The lake is full and we have the best room around. OK, maybe not the best room but a pretty good one. We are paying 600 rupees per night and our room actually extends out over the lake. There were a few other rooms we looked at but this one had the best outlook for the price.

The train trip from Jaipur to Udaipur was fine; we shared a 8 bed compartment with only one other guy so there was heaps of space to stretch out. The train was brand new too. Tomorrow I hope to get some photos up on here; Craig has taken some really nice shots.

Tonight Craig and I are performing at the city palace in the Shiv Niwas gardens. There may also be a French Canadian girl playing as well, she plays the bansuri. Craig and I have been having three hours of one-on-one lessons every day with Sureshji who was also kind enough to lend us some instruments to practice on in our own time. Today I learnt a great new peshkar that I hope to have mastered enough for tonight's performance. Both the King and the Prince will be at the City Palace tonight so the pressure may be on!

I'll have to leave it at that for now as I need to go and organise some train tickets back to Delhi and I don't want to miss out.

Jaipur

First of all please excuse any spelling mistakes as this keyboard has no letters on the keys.

We arrived in Delhi with no dramas; leaving Singapore caused no problems like trying to get in. We got a van into Parharganj and found a little room for 300 rupees that wasn't as bad as I first thought it would be. The only disapointment in Delhi was that we went to vist the Akshardham Mandir but it was closed, maybe we'll get a chance to go back before we fly out.

We arrived in Jaipur last night (10/04) and wen't straight to our friend's hotel - Hotel Pearl Palace - where we had to take the most expensive room 'cause there were no others. The room is really comfortable though with Air Con and a fridge, all for 500 rupees. Today in Jaipur was fantastic, we spent the morning visiting temples. We took darshana of Govinda Devji, Radha Damadora, and Gopinatha. It was a grerat experience seeing all three mandirs on the one day.

Tonight we leave for Udaipur where I know that I'll have access to a better computer to keep you all updated and get some private messages off.

Untill then, take care.

Blogging in Singapore

Just about to leave Singapore airport for New Delhi after a fairly un-eventful day browsing around little India. Un-eventful 'cause it is Sunday and most places were closed and there was also a power outage that kept business quiet. We nearly wern't alowed through customs because we were suspected of being members of the ' hare rama hare krishna' cult, quite a confronting situation really. Well, not much else to say so I'll cut it short and see if I can find a computer to post again from New Delhi.

Off to India

I'm just about to head off to the airport on my way to India so wish me a good flight. I'm actually stopping over in Singapore for about ten hours so that should provide a nice bit of relaxation time. I'm not sure when I'll get an opportunity to post again but hopefully I'll get some pictures up as well.

Portable Applications for India

As most of you now know I'm off to India this Saturday for a few weeks.

I've been wondering how I'd go accessing computer applications and all my web services while away 'cause I'm in mid term at the moment and still have some assessment and course content to complete. My fears have been allayed today with my discovery of Portable Apps.com, a fantastic site that creates installers for many popular desktop applications so that these apps will run from a USB drive, for example. There is even a Windows start menu lookalike application that provides an organised list of all of your applications and files.

I've now got Thunderbird setup with my few email accounts' details installed and also Firefox with foxmarks installed that syncs all of my bookmarks with my other computers. Other than this I've installed Miranda IM client and set it up with my IM log in details so I should be able to IM chat from any web accessible PC. I've installed many other programs including a media player and the Open Office Suite.

Now I've just got to hope that I won't encounter any firewall issues while in the subcontinent! I needn't worry about slow internet connections as I live in Australia, we have the worst internet of any country I've yet visited. If I can do it online here then I can anywhere!

John Butler Trio: Ocean

And another.

John Buttler Trio: Funky Tonight

Damn I like this guy, he makes it seem just so easy to play that song!

Exams

I just got my results for my mid-term test for PHI220: Body & Mind and, to my delight, I received 100%. The test was simple and consisted of five questions in multiple choice and short answer which I'll post below with my answers.

Q.1.

Epiphenomenalism is the thesis that:

A) Mental properties are causally inert
B) We don't have privileged access to our own mental states
C) Mental states are neither material nor immaterial
D) It is a category mistake to think that 'the mind' refers to a substance
E) All mental states are phenomenal states

Q.2.

J.J.C. Smart advances the identity theory, according to which sensations are brain processes, as:

A) an a priori claim whose truth can be established by an analysis of mental concepts
B) a claim that we can see must be true even if we have no idea how it can be true
C) a claim that must be true because its denial-dualism-is unintelligible
D) an empirical speculation that has little chance of being true
E) a plausible empirical claim

Q.3.

Explain why Putnam discusses the mental life of other animals-such as the octopus-in arguing against the claim that mental states are brain states.

Putnam argues that the brain-state theorist, to make good his claims, needs to specify a physical-chemical state so that any organism is in pain, necessarily and sufficiently, if it possess a brain of a suitable physical-chemical composition and its brain is actually in that physical-chemical state. This is not limited to just mammalian brains but any organism that has the potential to experience pain which, while sufficiently including mammals, also includes reptiles and molluscs (octopus), for example, as well. Putnam uses this example to illustrate the ambitiousness of the brain-state hypothesis claiming that the brain-state theorist does not just claim that pain is a brain state but that all psychological states are brain states. Putnam claims that if we can find a single psychological state that can be applied to both a mammal and an octopus, for example, and that the physical-chemical correlate is different between the two then brain-state theory collapses. Putnam thinks that this is 'overwhelmingly probable'.

Q.4.

Explain in a few sentences how the functionalist account of mental states differs from the behaviorist account of mental states.

Ned Block describes Functionalism as 'a new incarnation of behaviorism' because while there are many similarities between Functionalism and Behaviorism there is a difference in their ascription of mental states. For Behaviorism to be met a mental state consists of a disposition to act in certain ways relative to a certain set of input-output relationships, however Functionalism goes further. Functionalism also requires that internal (mental) processes will have a causal relationship with other internal (mental) processes and, at the same time, have a causal relationship with external input-output relationships. Functionalism therefore claims that mental states may be seen as causal 'objects' while Behaviorism only sees sensory inputs, or external causes (input-output relationships), as causally significant.

Q.5.

Block uses the example of the homunculi-headed robots to argue that functionalism is wrong because it:

A) is too liberal in its ascription of mental states
B) has no plausible account of mental causation
C) reduces to behaviorism
D) cannot give a plausible account of privileged access
E) is consistent with dualism

The Ethics of Microsoft

Ethics and Microsoft in the same sentence seems almost oxymoronical no matter what Bill Gates does with his own money. But that's all about to change courtesy of the Mexican Government. That's right, the Mexican Government, that too sounds almost oxymoronical. But thanks to Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, the ethical situation of both Microsoft and Mexico are looking up.

In a bid to reduce the terrible crime situation in Mexico the Government is offering a weapons buy-back scheme. Instead of cash, however, the Government is offering Microsoft XBox's in exchange for weapons. The Government is also considering exchanging complete PC's for the more powerful larger weapons, no doubt running one of Microsoft's notorious operating systems.

But will this scheme actually reduce crime? In countries such as the USA, Brittan, and of course Australia it is often argued that video game use actually increases the rates of crime. Those first person shooter (FPS) games have a horrible reputation for promoting violence. You can commit acts in some of those games that many would never conceive of in reality.

It remains to be seen whether this new XBox exchange scheme will reduce any violence within Mexico; maybe it will get even worse! Let's hope that the introduction of violent video games into a society that could not afford to purchase them, in large numbers, previously does not fuel the already raging crime fire.

Australia's Dental Health

A short while ago my partner Jodie wrote to numerous ministers in our Governments, Local, State, and Federal, about the lack of dental care in this country. Over the next few weeks I hope to post the replies, if she's so lucky as to actually get any, that the ministers give. Stay tuned.

New Layout...Again

I've changed my layout again. I know, I know, but this time I think I can make some changes that I'm happy with.

MQPhil Group Philosophy Blog

I really enjoy reading the many and fantastic group philosophy blogs on the net and now there is another one that you should all check out. MQPhil is a group philosophy blog by undergraduates from Macquarie University Australia. Looks like there will be some interesting entries soon.

<--LINK-->

Pandit Anindo Chatterjee: Tabla Solo

I just had to post this as it is amazing.

National Inter-Faith Festival

The National Inter-Faith Festival was held this weekend. It was well represented by many different religious and faith groups and had some great music. Tenzin Chogyal from Tibet is always great and there was also this great Iranian group performing with five or so Dafs; just amazing.

The first day, Saturday, began with an Arati in which I provided the tabla accompaniment. The Arati was performed for Gaura-Nitai, Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nityananda, and was filmed by representatives of all the national media. After the Arati we performed Bhajans for about another hour. I say we as I (sorry) have forgotten the woman's name who was singing and playing the harmonium. Anyhow the bhajans were well received except by a particular Catholic priest who prayed for us the whole time. It seems he was a bit freaked out by the Buddhists too.

On the second day, Sunday, we also performed a fire yajna (sacrafice) for shanti (peace). The second day also saw a few forums too. I attended a couple of the forums and I would have to say that, at the least, I was a little disappointed. I expected the forums to be of a higher standard and I was hoping to learn something new. I was particularly upset with how the representatives of Islam were treated in the forums. While a common question for the Christian representative, for example, would focus on love most of the questions fielded to the Islamic representative were phrased in a way that the representative would need to be defensive. For example most people only asked questions of the Islamic representative relating to the treatment of women. This was sad to see particularly at a National Inter-Faith Festival.

I would have to say that the festival needed better advertising and also better facilities so every religious/faith group could have the opportunity to engage publicly with their philosophy. It would seem that even at the National Inter-Faith Festival there is a hierarchy of religions. Such a pity seen as on the Sunday for half the day more than half the marques weren't even being used. These could have been used, as on the Saturday, by the different groups in ways they saw fit. Also, if you took your kids along then you would have discovered that there was nothing to keep them occupied. There are only so many religious forums and musical performances that children are willing to sit through.

My main criticism though is the disregard the organisers showed towards the practices of the different religious and faith groups. The example I'll give is of the Arati and fire yajna that we performed. By we I am referring to ISKCON here. We were told that were we to participate we needed to perform a ceremony. This may seem fine however a ceremony is not a necessary condition of religion and Arati and Yajna are not the main focus of ISKCON. The organisers should not assume that every religion or faith has ceremonies that are able to be publicly displayed, especially in only 20 minutes, and they should be willing to accept the practices of the religious and faith groups that they invite. Don't ask people to perform ceremonies and other actions just for public display when they are not part of the mainstream, often practiced 'methods of worship' of the particular religion or faith. Religion does not deserve to be essentialised in this way, or any other way for that matter, and especially not at a National Inter-Faith Festival. I heard one of the organisers complaining that the community at the festival were essentialising Islam but the way the festival was organised essentialised the religious and faith groups as it was.

The food was great but of course I'd say that. Krishna prasadam is always the most popular food at any festival. I'm not sure if the rabbit stew at the Gypsy stall had much success though.

Overall though I had a good time at the festival, even if my expectations weren't met, and I am looking forward to participating again next year.

Diu

I love this picture.

India

I was scanning some photos today to add to a forum for a Buddhism subject I'm doing this semester and I stumbled across a couple of pictures I really love. Maybe you won't like them as much as I do but they really sum up the locations that the pictures were taken in.

The first picture is a couple of chai cups that we'd just drained while waiting on the train at Mathura station. The cups are made of clay and are unfired. At the end of every day, or perhaps more than once per day if it is busy, the cups are all smashed into a pile, wet, and molded into new cups again. Such an efficient practice.



The second is of some Mani Stones along the street that runs alongside the Dalai Lama's temple complex in Upper Dharamsala. I like this picture for a number of reasons. To begin with it reminds me of my childhood growing up down the road from a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and seeing similar stones; even making them myself. I also like this picture because it reminds me of the..energy I suppose, of the Tibetan community in Upper Dharamsala. The colours, the brick work, the writing. I also love the wild vines growing over the wall.

My house is an Improvised Farm!!!

I've had so many animals in my house this weekend. I came home on Friday night to a 1.5 - 2.0 meter Diamond Python (that's a snake for you New Zealanders) in my dining room. I removed the snake into my front yard near a tree in the hope that it would find some safety there. Really quite a beautiful snake and Wiki (click here) have a pretty good article on them if you care to find out more, including a pretty gruesome picture too.

On the Saturday morning we all woke up to a pretty bad smell coming from the kitchen. I searched everywhere and couldn't find a thing. I even took apart the oven to see if there was anything dead in there. There wasn't. What I did find though was a cute little gecko (Wiki article) in the kitchen sink. We have quite a few geckos as they eat all the cockroaches (Wiki article) and what the geckos don't get the huntsman spiders do (Wiki article). Other than the geckos we have quite a lot of skinks (Wiki article) who eat all the other insects.

After a little nap I decided to really pull apart the kitchen to find the bad smell. I pulled out the fridge so I could get under the cupboard and that's where the smell was coming from. I found a dead rat. We have quite a few rats and mice here as we live in a country area and there are a lot of farms around me. THIS is where I live. My house is directly above the blue squiggly line.

Well I went outside to my guest house to find some sort of tool that I could reach under my cupboard to get the dead rat out. While looking for the tool I stumbled across a baby bush turkey (Wiki article). Well I found the tool, actually a mop, and went back inside to get the rat out. I removed the rat and put it in the back garden and now, to my delight, the bad smell has gone.

I wonder what animal I'll stumble across before I go to bed?

Re: That Magical (Ethical) Bullet

I've put in a new entry for the philosophy blog war on my Simon's Space: Philosophy and Religion blog called That Magical (Ethical) Bullet. Please, if you have a second or two, vote for my entry.

My Uni Papers

Many of you leave this site for my Uni papers site, over 20 of you per day actually. Well be sure to check it out again as I've upgraded the site today. It is much more user friendly now. I'm yet to add the Google analytics code for it yet so I won't know how many of you are going there for a while and do be aware that the new search function is only working on the home page at the moment. I hope to have this fixed over the next couple of weeks. If any of you find any more bugs be sure to give me a yell.

Trillian Behind USC's Proxy.....Not

For a while I've been trying to get around the proxy server at USC so I can use the Trillian IM client. Originally I thought that the web admins used port blocking as it took me ages to get my pop email client working (not working anymore though 'cause USC have recently upgraded to wireless networking behind a VPN and I can't seem to get POP working with this setup...yet). I've tried and scanned thousands of ports but even with the open ones I can't get Trillian to connect for more that 5-10 seconds.

I've now concluded that USC scans for IM session headers and blocks them. This is why I think that I can connect for up to 10 seconds before being disconnected. I've no idea how to get around a system that scans for session headers locally. I can connect remotely to my home PC and use Trillian that way but that kind of defeats the purpose. If anyone has any idea then feel free to let me know. I'll post the proxy configuration script here too.

USC Proxy Configuration Script -->

function FindProxyForURL(url, host)
{
if (isPlainHostName(host) ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".usc.edu.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".lnq.net.au") ||
dnsDomainIs(host, ".bne099u.server-web.com"))
return "DIRECT";
else
if (isInNet(host, "141.28.216.132","255.255.255.255"))
return "PROXY usclinux2.usc.edu.au:8080";
else
return "PROXY uscproxy1.usc.edu.au:8080";
}

My Next Holiday

As I alluded to (hehe, I think it may have been more than an allusion) in my previous post I am off to India in April with one of my friends for a holiday. A few of you have asked when I'll be going and where I'll be staying and as I just received my flight itinerary I thought I'd post it here. I'll be spending all my time, outside of transit, in Udaipur. I'm actually starting to get a little excited now.

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Itinerary-

Saturday April 7 - Depart Brisbane for Singapore.

Sunday April 8 - Depart Singapore for Delhi.

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Saturday April 21 - Depart Delhi for Singapore.

Sunday April 22 - Depart Singapore for Brisbane.

Philosophy, Morality & Society - Major essay - Pt. 2

Another semester down, phew. For whatever reason, well actually many reasons, I was just overwhelmed this semester. It's not that the work was too hard or anything similar I think that it has more to do with the fact that I've not had more than a single weekend off for over a year. My plan to remedy this: an international holiday. That's right, I'm off to India in a few weeks. I thought that unless I just make a booking I'll never give myself a break so that's what I did.

I got my final essay in today. I had quite a bit of trouble reducing that argument to so few words. There is just so much more information I wanted to include but I had to leave it out. If anyone wants to read my essay you can find it HERE or browse through some of my others by clicking |uni papers| above.

This semester I'm studying three subjects: An Introduction to Buddhism - Body & Mind - Business & Professional Ethics. I'm looking forward to all three but I am perhaps more eager to get back into the religious studies subject and the Body & Mind subject looks quite good too. Having said that I'll probably end up enjoying Business & Professional Ethics more :)

Now to get back to the Buddhism lectures.

Philosophy, Morality & Society - Major essay

I'm having one hell of a time writing this last essay for Philosophy, Morality & Society and it is not just the crappy word count. Well, the word count is pretty limiting; with only 1500 words I'm not sure how anyone can do justice to any question! My essay question is to describe how Professor Peter Singer argues that the interests of animals should be given equal consideration with the interests of Human beings and to outline whether I think that there is a moral divide between human and non-human animals. I think that there isn't any morally significant difference but how am I supposed to answer this question in only 1500 words!

Secondly, I received a telephone call from Centerlink, Australia's state welfare agency, the other day and I was advised that I am being cut off my meager pension. The reason, basically, is because of a loophole. I'm on disability pension (DSP) and, it seems, that to be eligible for DSP the candidate doesn't only need a debilitating medical condition but that condition needs to be being currently treated and stabalised.

Now this seems adequate on the surface but in my case I seem to slip through the cracks. Let me explain. I have a debilitating back condition. I usually describe it as a broken back but no vertebrae are in fact damaged. I have a perforated disk. The fluid in this disk has since drained out and I've been left with a mass of scar tissue surrounding the disk. The problem with this is that the disk itself has no nerves, and for good reason. If the disk had nerves every time you moved you would aggravate those nerves as each vertebrae slid around. Scar tissue has nerves so every time I move my spine I get quite severe pain. Surgery is out as the disks above and below are showing signs of weakness and were surgery to be performed the pressure on these disks would increase exponentially and hence increase the risk of them deteriorating further.

Now, on the surface, this would seem like a pretty good case for DSP but this is where the loophole comes into question. The criteria states that the condition needs to be stabalised and being currently treated. I've had masses of treatment and the outcome was, basically, that there is nothing that can be done other than some physio to slightly increase my mobility. Since then I have received no treatment, because none is available, and my condition isn't stabalised, it's in fact getting worse, because of there being no treatment available.

So because there is no treatment available for this condition I am not entitled to DSP. Now this seems absolutely absurd to me. My only option is to seek out the same, expensive, treatment that I've already had so I can reapply for DSP. It seems absolutely absurd that people with treatable conditions are eligible for DSP but people with medical conditions of which there is no available treatment are not entitled to DSP. In my opinion I think that this should be reversed if anything. What a way to clog up our health system; have possibly thousands of people with un-treatable medical conditions receive treatment that will do nothing just so they can get the pension that they need because they have limited-to-no access to work.

So this is my dilemma this week. I have this essay to complete but I'm also battling state bureaucracy and back to receiving daily treatment that I not only don't need but have to take time out of studying to travel to.

Bloody Centerlink. Your admin really need to go and read some Rawls.

Second Philosophy Essay

I received the comments back for my second essay this semester and I would have to say that I'm in complete agreement with them. Usually I'd disagree and pick the markers comments apart but this time I'm fine with them. I knew I wasn't perfect...this time.

You see, I'm having trouble answering the essay questions with such a tiny word limit - 1500 words. The question for this last essay was 'What are the central claims of moral relativism? Is moral relativism a plausible meta-ethical theory? Answer with reference to both objections to the theory and defences of it'. To me, at least, I had no idea how to answer this question, coherently and justly, in only 1500 words; and this seemed to be the only criticism of my essay, in essence.

I have two sets of comments for this essay, the first set from the guy who marked it and the second from my tutor. Both were almost identical. My arguments were clear, my exmples were unique and interesting, and the essay shows 'shows abundant research, passion, and understanding'.

The negative criticisms were uniform too and basically said that I was too ambitious and tried to cover too much ground with too few words; and I totally agree - I am ambitious!

Now, at least, I know where I need to focus for the next essay.