The NSA will never get me!

An interesting controversial subject that has grabbed my attention recently is internet privacy. I usually pride myself on being indifferent about such matters until I know enough information, but now I feel I know enough to warrant an opinion. I definitely don't align myself with the radical views of Julian Assange, but I do have a few views in common. In particular, I'm scared that the legal punishment for committing misdemeanors will remain fixed despite a growing transparency in private lives. Let me explain. Laws should ideally be made to prevent immoral activities. So consider, for example, hopping on a bus without a ticket and getting caught by the cops. A fine of $150 seems reasonable (from the states point of view) since it will do very well at preventing you (and others) from hopping on buses without a ticket. However, the number 150 is actually pretty arbitrary and i'd suspect a likely overestimate trying to compensate for all the times you've probably ridden the bus without a ticket but haven't been caught. This is a necessary thing to do since Sydney Transport doesn't have eyes all over the place which can tell them when people are abusing their system.

However, lets say that a sudden recent development in technology allows Sydney Transport to observe every passenger and instantly fine them for not having a ticket. What would this mean? Well, I'd suspect you'd get a lot of fines and a lot fewer people riding without tickets! All good right? NO! This is where the arbitrary origin of the $150 fine really comes into play. Imagine the subset of passengers that forgot to buy a ticket or had no money to pay for a ticket - these people are still victims of the unalterable $150 fine. I'm not trying to say that these people shouldn't be fined at all, I'm trying to say that the law needs to consider what fee is necessary to prevent illegal activity in different situations. Clearly the $150 fine isn't applicable in this hypothetical since a fine just a little bit higher than the price of the ticket itself would be enough of a deterrent. Basically, laws need to evolve with evolving technology.

Don't worry, this isn't a complete side track, this is actually all related to internet freedoms. In fact, I think this analogy is actually pretty accurate at representing the issues with the internet. Except, in this case, the bus fine is $2000 dollars and the cops can choose whether to target your or not.

My life is entirely transparent to anyone who has an internet connection. I check Facebook regularly, the videos I like on YouTube are put on display on my Google+ account, I write a blog, and I don't even delete my browser history. If the Australian government wanted to, they could sift through all the crap I've done and pick me up on a few misdemeanors - like downloading mp3 files off YouTube. Radicals like Julian Assange promote Government openness and individual privacy as a solution to this problem. I don't think we need to have complete anonymity, I think we need legal tolerance. Oh by the way, this doesn't just apply to just downloading movies and textbooks, this extends into all areas of online private life. I've been warned by countless members of my family not to mention any negative experiences about my work on my blog because it would make me look unattractive to other potential employers. In their eyes they see it as so little gain for so much potential loss. I kinda get that, but it's the principal that annoys me. A potential employer shouldn't resort to a highly exaggerated and (lets face it) somewhat fictional blog to find out the work ethic of an applicant. And more importantly, even if my blog was the source of relevant information about my work ethic, it really wouldn't give the employer the information necessary to compare me to other applicants since the other applicants could have cherry picked their online history and built a completely fake version of themselves.

Overall, it annoys me that a growing number of my friends are informing me that they find themselves culling pictures of themselves on Facebook to appear more attractive to a potential employer. Ultimately it probably doesn't bother them too much, but what they're doing is fueling an illogical thought process that's running rampant throughout society. Stahp it!

In other news, I didn't get drunk on Sunday! I know, i know! I got soooooooooo sober! A bloke called Andy who has been crashing on our couch for the last 2 weeks recently won $200 from a sporting bet and spent half of it on booze for the whole house on Saturday. It was fun. I passed out in a bathtub.

rags to riches

In the early years of world war 2, Joseph Stalin implemented his Scorched Earth policy whereby he destroyed his own territory to hinder the advance of the Nazi's. It's this type of ruthless military progress which I've learned to adopt to defeat the 'bed bugs' in my room. I recently purchased a 500ml bottle of rubbing alcohol and doused my infested mattress with it. If you listened closely, I think you could hear the tiny fuckers screaming. Or were they singing in drunken bliss? I don't know, but either way it took a lot of inner restraint for me to hold back on getting a match out and casually letting the room burn.

I also purchased an automatic poison dispenser which I've put in my room to kill any moths or remaining bed bugs wandering around. Hitler would be proud.

In other news, I met Josh in Penrith the other day after work. We talked about his new up and coming idea. I'm not sure how much he'd want me to say, but I can tell you that he's working on his own website for psychology. There's a long way to go and I'm skeptical about how successful it will be, but if there is anyone I know who has the drive to actually accomplish a 'get rich quick' scheme, it would be Josh. Matt Gates and I might be hijacking this train since I've got my Engineering videos on offer and Matt has a couple of philosophy videos he can offer too. I think this'll be an interesting project to work on this year.

Work is going OK now. University has started and little kids are running everywhere. I took a 15 minute break and crashed a physics lecture by one of my favorite teachers of all time, Joe Wolfe. It was kinda nice to re-immerse myself in the lecture environment. It was strangely inspiring.

Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm out of beer. All my home brew is gone. I'm thinking of brewing wheat beer next, but 'country brewer' isn't a place you pass by on your way to work or Mc Donald's. I'll probably start brewing my next batch when it gets colder anyway. It'll make the beer taste better.

O - week

To celebrate two weeks of accidental sobriety I got pissed last Friday. I went to the Rege (pub near where I live) with my roommates and a few others. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something was definitely different about the pub. For starters I was almost refused entrance for looking "glassy eyed" but then managed to talk my way out of it (it turns out begging and pleading works as a good negotiator). Once inside I noticed every middle aged, depressed and single man sipping on a beer that was usually there had been replaced with about fifteen 18 year old kids. Since graduating I've developed a pretty strong arrogance which has made me instantly devalue the conversation of any undergraduate i talk to. This turned out to be a good thing though because it meant I had no distractions to my drinking. Ideally I would have liked to drink in the outside section of the rege but a new house rule has been enforced which states that no one can drink any liquid in the outside section past 10:00pm. No doubt my brother getting glassed over the head a couple of months back had something to do with that - I guess both my brother and I have been glass eyed in the Rege now.

After a 2 day hangover I finally managed to summon up the energy to clean my filthy infested room. The inspiration was short lived though because I came to the realization that the largest shelf in my room was my floor, so I figured any square inch of floor space not covered with clothes would simply be a waste of space.

In other news Gim is back working at the office. Gim is a PhD student from Malaysia who works near me. He graduated at the same time I did, with the same degree I did, with academic grades and accomplishments I couldn't even dream of. He is literally better than me in every single way. He's also Christian which makes this intellectual standoff particularly interesting. It's like he has God on his side or something.