Accumulative Effect

Just when you think he can't possibly get any stupider...

IN BRIEF |Optus is experiencing a major outage in QLD and northern NSW due to simultaneous network failures. According to reports, a fibre link between NSW and QLD was damaged at the same time as a hardware failure occurred on the redundant path.

The outage is affecting all services, including Internet, mobiles and landlines. Many businesses including telcos, ISPs and others that rely on connectivity are also suffering as a result.

Some ISPs are reporting 1PM as a possible restoration time.

(Source, whirlpool.net.au)

This resulted in the total or partial loss for Optus, VodaPhone and 3 mobiles, internet and telephony services. Since many other ISPs and carriers use (in all or part) of the Optus interstate links (such as iiNet) also suffered from the outage which lasted from 8am this morning until just after 1pm today.

The electronic check-in and baggage handling systems at Brisbane's international and domestic terminals went offline, delaying flights for up to an hour.

Major banks and hospitals were also affected but the 000 number was not. Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital spokeswoman Kieran Keyes said the Optus outage had minimal impact on the women's and children's hospital.

While errors like this are incredibly rare, it does highlight how weak the nation is to possible attacks to our telecommunication infrastructure.  If the government owns none of the telecommunication network, and the telcos are unable to reach peering and fail-over agreements, then the country could suffer a total communications blackout with only a handful of targets needing to be hit.  Since the government is unable to mandate security with the telcos and with Telstra now being fully privatized, how can the government control and secure the networks in times of crisis?

The fact that some public services were effected at all, shows that this is a major national security problem which needs addressing.  Taking down the communication network of a country like Australia, should in our age of technology, be a near impossibility.

From An Onymous Lefty, Lynch mob makes creepy paedophile seem like a victim:

Out of control scenes in Queensland, where the inability of the courts to find an impartial jury has led to a man accused of a child sex offence being released, to the excitement of an angry lynch mob. Their fine mobby work has led to expensive police protection being required to protect the man, since lily-livered modern governments have some kind of weirdo problem with self-appointed gangs of angry people doling out mob "justice" in place of the courts. We don't need to see the evidence that a court would - he's done something similar before which obviously means it couldn't be anyone else who's done it this time, so why can't we exact our revenge in whatever bloodthirsty manner seems best to us?

First, I think it's important to stress that nothing I am about to say should indicate that I condone the activities of this clearly sick individual. NOTHING!

But at the end of the day, this whole morbid story makes me sick to my neck.  It feels like something which could so quickly spiral out of control and end up like the final scene in the "Lord of the Flies".  But by far the most disturbing thing about this that its exactly this type of fanatical and illogical behavior of the public which has led to the failure of incarceration for this man.  So far, I believe that the Police, the Courts and the Government have acted properly.  As much as my personal feelings are to have this man simply erased from existence, it's not up to the public to enact on bloody vengeance.

He was placed by the state, approximately 100Kms from the small town of Miles, and provided an extremely low risk of re-offending.  Because he's literally been "run out of town" the police have been forced to move him to a property in South-East Queensland with much higher population density and constant Police protection costing tax payers, $1000 per day!

The lynch mob have not only failed in getting rid of him (as if there was any place better we could stick/do to him anyway), but instead;

• Elevated the risk of him re-offending
• Added a great unnecessary cost of protecting him
• Reduced the number of Police on the streets
• Made it virtually impossible to ever convict him, on virtually any crime he has or will commit; and
• WORST, Turned this animal into a victim

To put all this simply, they shouldn't be protesting outside the property where he lives, they should be protesting outside Parliament House; where issues like this belong.

I love the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). They protect me and my family from developing expensive heroin and ice addictions; because everyone knows that video games are clearly a gateway to a life of violence and heavy drug use.

In the interest of protecting Australia from the ruthless thread of animated pixels, Fallout 3, is the most recent game to suffer the mighty wrath of the OFLC; being denied a rating, and thus effectively banning it in Australia. GameSpot AU, broke the news only a few days ago:

Rumours were swirling late last week that Australia's strict games classification regime had struck its highest-profile victim for 2008, with Fallout 3 apparently being refused a rating. It seems the rumours were true, with confirmation coming tonight that Bethesda's upcoming postapocalyptic action RPG has indeed been banned for sale in Australia.

So don't worry folks. The temptation to inject yourself in the arm with someone else's needle because you're unable to tell the difference between a post-apocalyptic digital fantasy land and reality is now gone.

Initially the news was just an industry rumor, as it's not the first time a video game has come under fire in Australia because our leaders lack the intelligence to add an R18+ rating for video games, despite the fact that other media has it. GameSpot AU later updated their post, confirming our fears:

Upcoming Bethesda game refused classification Down Under by ratings body; OFLC report confirms banning is due to showing positive effects of in-game drug use.

I think Jeremy from the An Onymous Lefty blog, sums it up perfectly:

Still, thank God the Board has been forced to apply the Government's stupidly inconsistent legislation in such a ridiculous way to this major game - maybe this will finally prompt enough outrage from the industry that they will push harder for change. Perhaps this will be the final straw, and idiot SA Attorney General Michael Atkinson will no longer be able to prevent the other AGs from the common sense approach of treating games like any other media that adults enjoy, by implementing an R18 rating.

you can read the whole post here; I highly recommend reading it because its hilarious much like Michael Atkinson's response to a constituent, arguing "That if you have an R18 classification system, children will get access to that material anyway."
Perhaps someone should explain the interwebs to him?