what are we doing today, brain?

This is just a test We are playing at the govhack day today:

So much cool stuff has happened since I started working in the government. The most exciting thing now is that a load of government data sets have been opened up (both at a federal and state level). This is an ENORMOUS step forward towards more openness, transparency and accountability in government, and I am extremely excited about it!

Now, we seriously need to get our collective tech community butts into gear, and show why open access to data is important and awesome for democracy, society, collaboration and (warning, about to use the “i” word…) massive innovation and creativity.

There is a mashup competition running, supported by the Gov 2.0 Taskforce and there are currently 4 mashup camps running in Australia, including a huge one in Canberra called GovHack at the end of the month! There are also some events happening in Sydney hosted by Google and Open Australia.

So this is a shout out and call to action for all people passionate about hacking, Open Standards, FOSS, open democracy and open knowledge to come along and participate in, well, an enormous and wonderful turning point for our society!

I’ll be at the Canberra mashup camp (GovHack) for most of the time, and will be trying to get along to the Google events and the Open Australia one. I encourage all of your to do your own mashup camps within your communities, be it a FOSS user group, web 2.0 group, standards or any other sort of community. Let’s see if we can ge mashup camps happening all over Australia!

The events and competition are not just for technical people, so imagine how you might be able to use your skills to contribute to a mashup, and ultimately to a more open society.

Get hacking, mashing and have fun out there! Catch you online!

PS - for those who are wondering or concerned, yes the funding for the Taskforce is provided by Microsoft, however it is managed by and completely at the discretion of the Taskforce, led by Nicholas Gruen, who are a wonderful group with all the right ideas and principles on openness and access. Don’t let the mere involvement of any company or individual rob your of the opportunity to contribute to something so awesome, and to have your very important perspectives represented on the national and indeed global stage. A full explanation from the Taskforce which should clarify any concerns is on their website.

Recently in martial circles there has been a raging debate as to whether women warriors have ever existed. I find this kind of debate frustrating, sexist and reminiscent of the debate that keeps popping up (although less so now) as to whether there are any women geeks.

My Shaolin Gung Fu master, Shi Fu Xing Mu, wrote a great article about this with references to many awesome historical warrior women, and some reasons why the myth is just that. I’m in the process of researching and linking them now, but check it out if you are interested. Short quote from the  article:

Those who are arguing for the myth viewpoint really seem to be winning. Their arguments are logical, well thought out and very reasonable and as a result they are difficult to refute. However, I feel that there is a tiny flaw in their argument that should be addressed, mainly that the entire premise is wrong!

I put my thoughts in the comments of his blog post, and have reposted them below.

I think that the reason many martial arts believe it is a myth, is because, as with religion, many martial arts basically have taken local cultural expectations of the day and enmeshed them into the martial style to maintain the status quo. It is no coincidence that many of the Japanese martial arts don’t recognise women as equals on the battlefield when in Japan itself, some schools still refuse to allow capable and worthy women to attain the black belt. It is no coincidence that many styles (particularly some European ones) only take into account brute strength, because for centuries or millennia the physically strongest _man_ would win. I think one of the strengths of many good martial arts (including many Japanese and European styles, as well as from all around the world), and certainly a strength of Shaolin Gung Fu is that there is an understanding growing that physical strength won’t win you the game. It takes skill, tactics, and overall the ability to know what works for you as an individual both on and off the battlefield. Each person is individual and has different strengths, whether they be male or female, big or small, fast or slow, and a good martial art or good martial artist should be able to easily facilitate anyone to be a great martial artist.

There is nothing masculine about martial arts, as they are fundamentally about knowing yourself completely, and being the best and most harmonious person you can be on the battlefield, but more importantly off the battlefield. With this in mind - plus the overwhelming historical evidence - the fact that there is a debate raging at all shows the utter lack of real understanding of these practitioners and how limited their practise is.

I need to be able to have speech translated on the fly to text for deaf children in classrooms around Australia. If anyone either has some suggestions or some experience in this, please either email me or leave a comment. If you have expertise and would like to work on something like this, get in touch!

Several weeks ago I went down to my hometown, Yass for Bonfire Night, which is on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend and often includes fireworks Anyway, I camped out there with some family and friends (in sub 0 degrees temperatures) and took some pretty cool photos. Enjoy!

Check out all the photos here where there are also some explanations

Today is Software Freedom Day all around the world. We have over 330 teams in over 90 countries participating, which makes it the biggest outreach event for software freedom in the world!

Check out an event near you!

So the actual Software Freedom Day 2007 shirts are a much nicer green than originally anticipated. So for all the people who weren’t fans, I think they might like this more Male and female sizes available on the online store.