Who ignored this report last year before deciding to go live with the system?
Doctors threaten to walk over payroll bungle
Quote from 4.5.2 Integration within the solution: "Given current stage of the project it is too late to re-architect the solution. However, it should be considered during the next opportunity (new project release, solution upgrade)."
I swam the Paroo River once on the way back from the Birdsville Races. It was a photography trip with the Queensland College of Art.
After sitting in a little bus for hours I needed solitude and that wide, brown river looked perfect.
That little river must've been about 500m wide back then. Thanks to the Queensland floods in recent months it's running towards the Murray-Darling River system in NSW/South Australia.
The Paroo has only ever flooded that far twice before - according to tonight's 7pm ABC news. (April 10, 2010)
The rains are bringing life to the outback after a long dry spell that's seen communities dwindle away.
I was reading all the reports on the Murray-Darling Authority's website and it seems that aging farmers with little help are keeping the place running out there.
Communications, hospitality and leisure services have left isolated regions to die off - we're talking about Australia's salad bowl here.
Young people too moved away to study and find jobs. Banks and schools closed.
Some communities in the Murray-Darling Basin still thrive but they are only the ones near big regional towns like Toowoomba - one of Australia's fastest growing regional centres.
Now the State Government's mooted this idea of having two capital cities in Queensland Townsville and Brisbane to stop the clutter of suburban spread, traffic gridlock and overpopulation in our capital.
I reckon we need to build grids of cities across the Great Dividing Range: Brisbane, Charleville, Charters Towers, Townsville - cities that are near rivers. Rivers always mean life.
Then you connect them up with a river of broadband and we build communities - not residential suburbs with no public transport, jobs or opportunities - we can accommodate that big population the Federal Government is talking about building - the one that the community doesn't want.
When I drove through the mountains of NSW at Christmas time I found some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen - on both sides of the range. All that land.
It's funny isn't it. We who live here don't actually appreciate the opportunities we have here.
But the refugees who keep arriving in leaky boats and who are now cramped on Christmas Island - all they see is opportunity. That's why they're willing to risk it all on the toss and pitch of the ocean to get here. Would you pack up your kids and hop a broken down hovel of a boat for a holiday?
I attended my first Screen Producers of Australia Queensland branch meeting this week. And this topic of broadband - as far as I'm concerned it's like the HOLY GRAIL!
We debated the fate of Australian film - it's on on-going debate that started decades back - but this was an interesting session because experienced feature film producers are now talking about doing interactive stories and asking the question: Does Screen Australia (Australia's main funding body for film) need to change its funding criteria to support 360 productions - not lump the interactive stuff in the budget for a "feature" film but actually fund Transmedia Productions. I know... HELLO! But it made my heart sing to hear established practitioners raising the question I've been thinking about for years.
The problem is still BROADBAND. Australia can't support transmedia storytelling because we have God-awful broadband - even if the people here are the world's most prolific users of social media. This ain't Korea.
And there's another problem! People still want to do co-productions with Hollywood when we have Korea on our doorstep. Have you seen Korean films? They are AMAZING storytellers not to mention the production quality.
The installation of National Broadband Network (NBN) will be like the flooding of the Paroo and the Murray-Darling River - life-giving properties. But business and politics are still slugging it out over that one too. Never mind the national interest. If they had to build the Snowy River Hydro-Electric Scheme today it would still be a pipe dream.
Are Australian values dead? I think those values I see in my 92-year-old grandmother who lived on the land without electricity or running water for a significant part of her life has different values.
Perhaps those values do still exist in the hearts of those refugees on Christmas Island.
Do we really know what Australian values are any more?
And don't say mateship! Say cronyism.
Say all for one and... "gee how does that go again?"
These were often the famous last words of The Robot on Lost in Space just before Dr Smith or some alien disabled him to shut him up: Crush Kill Destroy!
That's what I'm trying to do to my tax return at the moment: Here's my tax table. I've got an appointment tomorrow with the accountant.
That's what I should be doing now instead of this post.
But I have one thing I must get off my mind now about recklessness attitude of the airlines during this whole Iceland Volcano ash cloud situation - now they want compensation!
Was it the government's or the public's fault? Who's going to compensate the traveling public or other businesses affected by the crisis?
People can't get their heads around the safety aspect of their business - they don't want to act responsibly. No it's not that they don't want to it's that they are able to build an argument based on their own priorities to justify their demands.
The other day I heard one airline boss basically saying: "To HELL with the mathematical models of where the ash is going to linger just open the airport so we can make money!"
Well, that's what I heard - that's not the exact words that he was speaking.
At the same time I've been listen to the attacks on Former Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon for going to dinner when she should have been overseeing the bush fire emergency on the night of the Black Saturday bush fires.
That night I remember watching the 7pm news when about 8 people were reported to have died. A couple of hours later, maybe it was 10.30pm I listened to the radio news before I turned in and suddenly the toll was something I couldn't believe - I didn't believe it - how could close to 100 people have died in a bush fire in just an hour or so? But they did. And yes, it was in this time that Christine Nixon went to dinner.
How casual we are with other people's lives. I do think she's been unfairly hounded because her behaviour reflects a community norm of lack of due consideration of "possible consequences of our actions".
Sure you might get some planes through the ash clouds - but why should some people have to die just to get back to business as usual - that's what they're talking about.
I've spent several months out of the rat race now just researching social media, writing and making decisions. I'm not on anyone's clock. Last Friday I decided, now that I'm traveling at my pace and not someone else's, that the pace people are supposed to travel at is at least half what the average modern-day rat travels. What does this do to our ability to make decisions if we don't let our mind think about anything except the 100 things we must do in the next second: pick up the phone, put on the brake, watch the red light, ignore the tailgater, get to work on time, recharge the phone, return the DVD..... do you see what I mean?
If I don't lodge my tax return before the May deadline I'll have to pay a fine - I haven't paid due consideration to this because I've had 10 months to do it and I haven't.
I know my saying this is going to change nothing. I don't even think you have time to consider what I'm saying. Do you?
Danger! Danger! Danger Will Rob-in-s....disabled.
CHILDREN in NSW may soon become the happiest children in Australia because they are learning ethics at school, renowned Buddhist scholar and friend of the Dalai Lama Dr Robert Thurman says.
Learning about the value of patience, tolerance and altruism will help them evolve into beings of higher consciousness and perhaps curb the materialist thinking that leads to what he calls the “Terminal Lifestyle”.
“What I call the Terminal Lifestyle comes from believing that everything ends when we die,” he says. “Life is meaningless. We are alone in the universe and at death we become nothing."
"Madness comes from the world view that life is like a terminal disease and day by day we move towards death," he says. “It renders everything you do ultimately meaningless. It’s a huge cop-out.”
But Columbia University's Professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies, whose daughter is the actor Uma Thurman, does encourage people to follow their bliss and he practices what he preaches.
Uma's mother and Dr Thurman's first wife was a supermodel. Dr Thurman's life and thoughts reflect all the contradictions which face young people today.
“People should be teaching kids to control their minds,” says Dr Thurman, who makes his first trip to Australia next month for the Happiness and Its Causes conference in Sydney.
"We have to get people to develop common sense and not let them be brainwashed," he says.
As a young man, the son of Associated Press editor Beverly Reid Thurman, dropped out of Harvard to go to Tibet to become a Buddhist monk.
Now he's a strong advocate for an independent Tibet and close friend of the Dalai Lama.
"We (The West) abdicate our responsibility to build up the moral character of our students, that's generally universal," says Dr Thurman, whose daughter stars in some of the most morally ambiguous violent blockbusters ever made such as Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill series.
Yet he says violence should be discouraged. Happiness is an attitude which proper spiritual or ethical instruction can encourage.
At 17, on a dare, he and a friend ran away from school to try to enlist in the Cuban Revolution - this happened before the Cuban missile crisis which saw the introduction of a US ban on its citizens traveling to Cuba which continues to this day.
Luckily, the teenagers from the exclusive and very right-wing school called Philips Exeter Academy failed to make it to Cuba because the recruiters thought they were a bit too wet behind the ears.
Looking back, Thurman says he is proud to have had the courage of his convictions but thinks Castro turned out to be a "dreadful character".
Their romantic notions about revolution started from reading the poetry that the now-ailing Communist leader wrote while hiding out in the mountains as a young man.
The whole New Age philosophy of living in the moment can only make sense if you believe "the message" of James Cameron's Avatar that everything is connected and life goes on after death, Dr Thurman says.
Again this sounds a little contradictory, given his comments about not brainwashing people, but Dr Thurman admires the film not only because of its message but because it's fun.
He says it's good to stand up for ideals but it's also necessary to have fun to be happy.
"Non-violence begins at home," he says. "Be nice to the dog. Ask yourself: 'How am I living?'
"How violent have you been this morning?"
He believes that one of the deepest forms of fundamentalist blind faith is materialism which cannot bring happiness.
People are happy when they believe that they matter and they have purpose.
Happiness is being able to find joy in small things - besides an iPod - like stopping to pet the dog.
The Professor says the creation of ABC3, a public television station exclusively dedicated to children, is a sign of more evolved thinking in Australia.
Even Star Wars creator George Lucas could not convince politicians in the United States to do the same thing a decade or so ago when new bandwidth was being sold off, Dr Thurman says.
About 15 years ago, George Lucas went to then-President Bill Clinton to beg him to create an education TV channel for the United States.
“They were dishing out bandwidth to big corporations and George rushed to Washington and got to see Clinton. He got nowhere,” Dr Thurman says.
Clinton told him that the higher up a politician is the less power they actually have because they’re more indebted to corporate America which means their ability to perform acts of public benefit is compromised.
“George was very frustrated,” Dr Thurman says.
Thurman argues with the Dalai Lama over his plans for a democratic Tibet. He’s concerned that Tibet’s spiritual leader does not understand the intricacy that not only thwarts democracy but also is at odds with the Buddhist ethic.
“In Congress, politicians (who are supposed to represent their electorates) are for sale,” he says. “I’m totally for democracy, don’t get me wrong, but we need to change the electoral system.”
Thurman thinks that the electoral cycle should be shorter so that politicians don’t have their snouts in the trough too long.
“I feel that there should be more control over corporate access to children’s minds because these corporations are so powerful,” he says.
“When I see a healthy young kid sitting around totally focused starting at a tiny screen exercising only his thumbs and not taking the time to pet the dog or go out and run around all I want to do is jar them out of it and make them go for a walk.”
The introduction of ethics in schools is in line with the Dalai Lama's idea of teaching secular ethics - common values to all religions - generally.
Dr Thurman will speak at the Happiness and Its Consequences conference on May 5-6.
Dr Thurman is the Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies at Columbia University’s Religion Department, President of Tibet House and author of Why the Dalai Lama Matters.
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidarity to pure wind" _ George Orwell.
We are in big trouble with politicians discarding the truth - AGAIN - in order to be re-elected. I'm outraged that we have to choose between Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd - the choices just seem to get worse and worse and worse as the elections roll by.
It took the ABC's Four Corners to prompt Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's apology for the deaths of people in the botched insulation program.
He actually met the parents Four Corners interviewed and didn't even offer condolences for the death of their son - that's what they told Four Corners. What kind of behaviour is this? I don't think Tony Abbott is better either. These "men" are not caring for their constituency they are caring about their personal/political goals. Wrong priorities.
Rudd apologised but significantly failed to release those letters Environment Minister Peter Garrett sent him during those months when bureaucrats, electricians and parents were trying to get the Rudd Government to provide life-saving checks and balances and training.
It's representative government - they represent us - do they represent our values? Do we get what we deserve?
I examined a slideshow about the results of a social media study conducted by InSite Consulting today. (released March 2010)
It shows social media as a pyramid of activity with content creators at the top and inactive users at the bottom.
The breakdown goes like this: 24 percent of social media users are content creators, 33 percent are conversationalists, 37 percent are critics, 20 percent are collectors, 59 percent are joiners, 70 percent are spectators (I guess most of us are spectators most of the time), and 17 percent are inactive.
If a democracy profile is similar to this break down with politicians at the top making laws, the conversationalists are people who bother to keep up with current affairs, the critics are the media, the joiners are sheep or maybe swinging voters and we're all spectators - perhaps this is why we're in trouble? I don't know what the overlap is in this study: I'm sure that some critics are conversationalists etc....
The point is that the people able to hold politicians and political parties (their interests are not necessarily the interests of the community) make up only half the population - if we're lucky.
Sure everyone over 18 votes in Australia - that may be one of the problems! Compulsory voting. If people don't care should they be forced to vote?
Participation is key - people need to care before politicians will give a damn. It only works when people are held accountable. It seems that what's more important to everyone is "what you can get away with".
We're in trouble. It is an "act of political cowardice" - to use the prime minister's words in regard to failing to do anything about climate change - to let THEM "get away with this".
Where does power reside in a democracy?
The slideshow:
<img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNzI*NTAwMzY2NTUmcHQ9MTI3MjQ1MDA*NTUyOCZwPTEwMTkxJmQ9c3NfZW1iZWQmZz*yJm89OTNlNWM3MzIwY2Nm/NGNmZGIyYmI1NmE2NzM4YTUwMWImb2Y9MA==.gif" /><div style="width:425px" id="__ss_3435531"><strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px">Social networks around the world 2010</strong><div style="padding:5px 0 12px">View more presentations from stevenvanbelleghem.</div></div>
I don't think that Leonardo da Vinci would have said "every whole is greater than the part" if he knew about quantum physics.
The way physicists try to explain it these days - because it's the only way their findings make sense - is that the parts may be so far apart that scientists never even factored them into the picture.
This is a 10-minute edit. Was going to work on it but too exhausted so it's a whole 5 minutes long with some art works from the Unnerved show thrown in. It's worth sticking around for the end when they really rock out. Sorry but Flip Cameras obviously aren't great with audio - and the acoustics in the gallery are not good. But how long has it been since you've heard Dirty Creature or I See Red?
