Month: April 2009

New website launched for Senator Lundy

Over the past two weeks I’ve redone and consolidated the 3 existing websites into Senator Kate Lundy’s new website. I’ve been really impressed to be reading through her historical posts, podcasts, blogs, speeches, and the efforts she’s made (often enough on her own) with technologies such as Joomla, Frontpage, Audacity, Twitter and more. We’ve already imported over 400 articles!

Anyway, the new site is up, there are still some tweaks we are doing, and there are still a few media releases we are importing (manually) from her old Frontpage website (argh!!!!) but it’d be great to get people’s perspectives and feedback.

One thing it would be good to know is what do people what to know about? How could we – through her online presence – help make Australian Government processes more transparent? What are some good examples from overseas? Links, stories and ideas welcome!

Virgin 3G on Ubuntu Jaunty

Today I bought a Virgin 3G USB dongle for internet access while on the road, and I thought I’d share the experience. It turns out I don’t need to write up the documentation because it mostly works out of the box, and the little bits I need to change are already well documented 🙂

First I looked at the Ubuntu 3G Hardware page to see what the best supported cards were. We already have our mobiles on Virgin, so I was pleased to see the default Virgin mobile Broadband device was supported, the Huawei E169.

When I plugged it in, I then created a new mobile broadband connection through the network manager. If I used all the defaults, and then selected the connection through Network Manager, it would ask for a password and fail.

So I followed the excellent instructions from the Ubuntu forums here to both disable chap from the /etc/ppp/options and edit my network managed mobile broadband connection with a few settings (the Virgin Broadband number and password, plus the changing of the name from the default VirginInternet to VirginBroadband) and within minutes it is working perfectly!

This configuration is on an EEEPC 1000H running Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) which is currently in beta, but looks great.

Going to work on the Hill

I am very excited to say that I am now working as a Policy Adviser for Senator Kate Lundy! This is a very different direction for me. I have worked in the ICT industry for almost 10 years, been deeply involved in FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) for nearly as long, and although I have worked with several Government agencies, I’ve never been involved in the political arena. I’ve also been a long term observer of Senator Lundy, watching her really involve herself in our industry and try to ensure there is sufficient political debate and understanding around core ICT issues.

I felt and the Senator agreed that it was important I announced this new role in my blog considering the public profile I have, and that I have always tried to be as open and transparent in my actions as I could. Senator Lundy feels that online and transparent engagement with the democractic process is an important goal, and I am now a part of that process.

On a personal level, I am extremely excited about this role. I love Parliament House, and now I am working here. I have always wanted to understand how policy and legislation comes about, and how the political process works. But I have, as have many Australians, been fundamentally disinterested because of, well, the politics 🙂 This role gives me an opportunity to really understand – and hopefully participate effectively in – the system.

This role is my new full time employment, and as such I will not be engaging in any new Waugh Partners’ or other business. Jeff will be continuing as a Waugh Partners’ consultant, focusing primarily on his new website development work.

From a community participation level, I intend on maintaining my participation in various industry and community groups, however I will not be in any leadership or advocacy roles. I have spoken to Donna Benjamin and James Purser, who are both specifically interested in creating a FOSS Government liaison  group, and if anyone else is interested in useful engagement with the Government, please speak to Donna or James.

Traditionally a person employed as a political staffer would not have any kind of “public” role. This is largely because of the challenges in ensuring a clear distinction between when a person is speaking on behalf of their employer, or themselves. Taking this into account, plus my existing online presence, we will be experimenting with me continuing to blog and twitter, and I hope to establish a good balance.

I see my new role as a way of contributing to a more robust and informed discussion within Government about ICT, skills development, online engagement in the democratic process, and the importance of openness (standards, technologies, transparency) in sustainable ICT procurement, in industry development and in global competitiveness. I hope that my peers in the FOSS community, in the ICT industry, in the media and in education are supportive of me in this role, and I look forward to an open dialogue to help shape future directions of ICT for and within the Australian Government.

Another excellent Unlocking IP conference

The Unlocking IP group at UNSW have coordinated many great conference about open knowledge and openness over the years, and the most recent upcoming conference will be the last of the project. If you are interested in open knowledge, copyright, the impact on  access and development of content and other related topics, then definitely come along! The speakers and topics look great!

National and Global Dimensions of the Public Domain

Many thanks to Prof Graham Greenleaf, David Vaile, Abi Paramaguru, Catherine Bond, Ben Bildstein and anyone else who has contributed to the Unlocking IP project, as it has been a real spearhead of research in opening access to content and knowledge.

The “myth” of warrior women

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.

Open Source for non-profits

I’ve been invited to speak at the Connecting Up conference which is a conference for the non-profit sector. I’ve spoken at similar conferences a few times, but have only just stumbled across the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative, who have some great information for non-profits, including a primer document with practical information on selecting appropriate tools and basic TCO worksheets. I also found an interesting Red Hat case study on non-profits and an article called Open Source and non-profits: A match made in Heaven. Enjoy!