So the last three weeks have seen a lot of action:
FTA
I met with some of the Media industry reps last week, to discuss the FTA, and what they had been doing. We luckily were able to contribute some questions to the senate enquiry as part of a collaborative effort, that will be forwarded onto DFAT for review. That was pretty cool. Then Rusty, Brendan and I met with them as well as some PBS people down in Canberra (I have done a lot of driving in the last few days). We found out these groupd of people had been working on the FTA stuff for two years. Boy do we feel like the new kids on the block 🙂 Anyway, we are in a slightly more unfortunate position in that these groups we met with are the respected top people in their fields, and at least have a chance. We have organisations in Australia who have almost all US companies on the boards, making decision about IT in Australia. They approved the FTA, and continue to undermine our efforts to bring the issues to the eyes of the people unknowingly screwing us over. These other groups were at the table, so to speak for the FTA negotiations, and still didn’t get what they were promised. We’ve been told that drug prices _will_ go up, and that those who should be saying it are leant on, while others are paid to simply lie. It bothers me that money is placed way above life, and that most things we all work for is not for the benefit of anyone but a nameless, faceless, unaccountable machine. Anyway, we are all still determined to work on it, at any rate some serious contingency plans are needed.
So short term, to continue the ‘education’, we will be getting Lessig out here, and hopefully on a teleconference before the Senate Enquiry stop taking advice. We will put together some collaborate cross-industry press releases, and try to have a press conference with Lessig, if we can. This should give a lot of attention to the issues, we hope.
Contingency plans? Still working on them. Someone gave me the AWESOME idea, of rallying the community to show prior art for a heap of patents in Australia, and then publicly saying the system needs some work and we’d be happy to assist the patents office with their research or prior art. One of the problems, as many people know, is that the patents are not getting due research, one reason why such trivial patents keep getting granted. We could potentially be a part of taming the process. Ultimately, trying to prove that software methodologies really shouldn’t be patented in the same way that math or art can’t be patented, but in the meantime we need other things to do. We need to beat this by going over it, under it, around it and through it. (A Maureen quote 🙂
Personal
Over the last few weeks, I have been screwed over by work, to the tune of $12k, I have been working night and day on either work, LA, FTA, wedding stuff, university, and getting really angry about Australian politics. The thing that I have realised is that the reason so much bad stuff is happening is simply because Australians are too lax, too complacent and self-centred, too proud to think there is a problem, and to bother doing anything about it. I’ve been trying to plan how to make the world better, possibly through increased communications, independent media and Free Knowledge, and trying to figure out where I fit in and how I can contribute. My parents went overseas, Jeff was overseas, I have driven all over the place, continued with Kung Fu and my eternal search for ‘truth’ and ‘clarity’.
Oh, and I nearly died this morning. All the activity, all the planning, all the crap going on drained me and I was listening to a lot of aggressive music to get the energy for each day. I drove too fast around a corner on a wet corner, lost control and thought I saw myself dead a few minutes into the future. I regained control, and it was fine, however being on a bridge meant that if I hadn’t it would have been a lot worse than a little prang. I was quite shaken up, and didn’t really realise it till this afternoon. I’m not really scared of dying so much as the complete lack of control I had let myself get to. I think we need a holiday, one of those no mobile and no email holidays, even just for a few days 🙂