1. The Spiel. Talking about boardgames these guys just deliver every single fortnight. They are funny and informative with consistently good content. Their show is segment based with each segment focusing on specific games as well as a news and notes and a feedback segment. This is my favorite podcast and comes highly recommended. The Spiel also has some really interesting contests including some really hard puzzles to solve.
2. The Java Posse. This long running technology podcast about the Java programming language alternates between news and interviews. It keeps me up to date and entertained so I can do my job. My gut feel is that this cast isn’t as interesting and fresh as it used to be but it still makes my must listen to list.
3. The Two Chris’s. This political podcast is taken from a segment on the morning program my local ABC radio station and features Christopher Pyne and Chris Schatt who debate the issues of the day from Liberal and Labor perspecives respectively. I find this a really good way to keep up to date with the Australian political landscape both nationally and in South Australia.
4. The Dice Tower. Though a little less consistent in quality than The Spiel The Dice Tower still offers quality boardgame listening with top ten lists and contributions from a number of greater or lesser celebrities in the boardgame world. They also have some good contests. Lately they have been replaying some of their older episodes in between their fortnightly new material.
5. This Week in Tech. The one word that I would use to describe this cast is slick. Professionally produced TWiT is like a PC magazine built for radio. The content tends to be lighter as Leo Laporte and guests discuss the week’s technology news.
6. Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast. One of the two Christian podcasts on my list the Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast serializes messages from prominent Christian speaker Joyce Meyer. Produced every weekday you get to hear sections of messages that Joyce preaches at various conferences and gatherings around the world as well as a few interviews. The content is really good but I find the advertising intrusive so I generally skip it. I find that if I skip the first 30 seconds of each podcast and then skip to the end when Joyce stops speaking I get the best results.
7. Geeks and God. These guys talk on some serious technical topics aimed at helping churches and ministries with technology. The content, however, is relevant to a wider audience. Their series on Drupal was fantastic. Currently on a long break I am looking forward to when these guys return.
8. Garrets Games and Geekiness. Hosted by Doug Garrett and his wife Shelley this boardgame podcast covers games that Doug has played in various locations as well as a number of really good roundtable discussions and interviews. I like the conversational style of this cast and Doug certainly manages to get some interesting guests.
9. On Board Games. A relatively new boardgame podcast hosted by Scott Nicholson (of Boardgames With Scott fame), Donald Dennis and Eric Dewey. The podcast uses a segment based format with one segment devoted to a boardgaming topic of interest referencing various gamers and then a number of game reviews. The game reviews use a “stop light” system (red, yellow, green) which I find really useful.
10. Have Games Will Travel. A long running boardgame and role playing game podcast hosted by Paul Tevis. Paul covers some interesting topics and ventures into the role playing game world in a way that is most entertaining and informative. Paul uses his experiences in improv theatre to relate to being a GM of a role playing game and manages to discuss some really interesting psychology around social contracts in gaming as a result.

The Government Shouldn’t be Choosing who is and is not a Suitable Person to Be a Chaplain.

This is ludicrous. The government chooses now who is and isn’t a suitable person to be employed in a school. This is to protect the children from either incompetence or malicious intent. If a school decided to employ someone who was a paedophile, advocating violent Jihad or promoting animal sacrifices I would hope that the government would have something to say about it. These standards apply to all people employed in schools and I don’t see this program as any different. As for the suggestion that the government will be vetting people’s religious beliefs and only allowing those who agree with the government’s particular ideology, that is simply scaremongering.

Look at all the Problems the Church has had with Paedophiles, We Don’t Want People Like that Looking After our Kids.

Indeed we don’t. The fallacy here is associating the church necessarily with paedophilia. Yes there have been examples of paedophiles in the church but is the incidence really greater than that in the rest of society? Is it just that the media rightly holds the church to a higher standard that cases of paedophilia receive more prominence? Is it just that the church is such a big prominent organization that it presents an easier target? Because of that prominence it is easy to hold up the examples and characterise all churches that way but is that fair? Haven’t all churches taken steps to ensure that a higher standard of child protection is in place? I know the measures taken by my church and they have been so successful that our program is being used across the country as an example of how to do child protection. With these standards in place can people really say that to employ someone from a church is to employ a paedophile?

My real argument here is that the government has to assess school workers now and do background checks and that this process be no different with those appointed as school chaplains - there really should be no difference.

Won’t the Chaplains be Brainwashing our Kids?

I have two arguments with this. Firstly, from a Christian perspective, becoming a Christian is entirely a person’s choice. You can’t be brainwashed into it because the relationship is between God and you directly. This can happen because Jesus died on the cross so that you can be holy enough to have a direct relationship with God. No brainwashing can get around the requirement of your own choice.

Secondly, what is everyone so afraid of in Christianity? What are the churches teaching that is so objectionable? Aren’t our laws based on the ten commandments anyway? Are the virtues of grace and love so hard to swallow? Quite apart from the fact that Christianity isn’t primarily about the requirements to live a good life aren’t the churches teaching things that our society values anyway?

Wouldn’t Secular Counsellors be Better?

I believe that we are both physical and spiritual beings. Any solution that ignores the spiritual component of our makeup is going to miss dealing with an essential part of our nature. Secular counsellors are not going to deal with that part of us so that, whilst what they do can be very helpful, they are not going to address the spiritual root causes of some of the problems attacking our youth.

Conclusion

In this debate we have to be mindful that a lot of the arguments are being advanced by people who are themselves religious but in different ways. Chris Schacht is an avowed atheist which is a religion in and of itself. To put atheism on a higher level than other religion whilst espousing a post modernist relativistic philosophy is the height of hypocrisy.

For those not familiar with DRM it is basically a way of preventing music from being played on different devices. For instance if I buy a song on the iTunes music store and I then want to use it on any other MP3 player than an iPod, I can’t. This means that I am locked in to buying only Apple iPod music players rather than deciding for myself what the best player is. It also means that at any time Apple can control what I can and can’t do with the music I have purchased from them.

This week I received a response via Kate Ellis from Phillip Ruddock the federal Attorney General regarding my query:

Dear Ms Ellis

I am writing in response to your letter dated 29 June 2006 to Senator the Hon Helen Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, concerning copyright legislation before the French Parliament. Senator Coonan referred your enquiry to me as the Minister responsible for copyright law.

The Government is generally aware of the proposed French DADVSI law reforms or the “ipod laws,” particularly as they relate to interoperability and information technology. I understand that the stated objectives of the DADVSI laws are to adapt the French copyright regime to new uses, including interoperability, strengthen rights against digital piracy, facilitate access to works for some users and to strengthen the French Ministry of Culture and Communications’ powers to manage copyright and performing rights.

As regards interoperability, I note that there is an existing exception under section 47D(1)(d) of the Copyright Act 1968 for the reproduction of computer programs for the purposes of interoperability. However this exception does not extend to other forms of copyright material, in particular to music and sound recordings, in the same way that I understand the French DADVSI law reforms propose to.

The Australian Government has no immediate intention of introducing reforms like the DADVSI laws in Australia, but we will monitor their progress. However, the Australian Government will soon be introducing a number of important reforms to the Copyright Act. These reforms will strengthen the enforcement measures in order to address increasing piracy and will also legalise some forms of copying by consumers, including ‘format shifting’ of legitimately acquired music.

I attach my media release of 14 May 2006 and an overview of the proposed reforms. I hope these will be of assistance in responding to your constituent.

The action officer for thismatter in my Department is Lauren Henschke who can be contacted on XXXX-XXXX.

Yours Sincerely

(signed)

Philip Ruddock

With the letter was a media release on the new laws issued on the 14th of May which is too long to reproduce in full (the complete release can be found here) but I thought that there were a few sections that were interesting:

The changes will, for the first time:

• Make it legal for people to tape their favourite TV or radio program and play it at another time
• Legalise ‘format shifting’ of material such as music, newspapers, books – meaning people can put their CD collection onto IPods or MP3 players
• Provide new exceptions allowing schools, universities, libraries and other cultural institutions to use copyright material for non-commercial purposes
• Provide new exceptions for people with disabilities to allow access to copyright materials
• Allow the use of copyright material for parody or satire
• Provide new enforcement measures to combat copyright piracy including onthe-spot fines, proceeds of crime remedies, a change in presumptions in litigation to make it easier to establish copyright piracy

So “format shifting” is being legalised. Format shifting is defined a bit further down:

Format-shifting means copying material from one format to another. Formatshifting may be done to take advantage of new technology (eg. dubbing a video tape to DVD) or to enjoy the material in different locations (eg. transferring music from CDs to a portable MP3 player).

OK so does converting a song purchased at the iTunes Music Store into another MP3 format so that you can download it into the cheap MP3 player you bought at the gym constitute “taking advantage of new technology” or “enjoying the music in a different location” ? I don’t think the release is clear.

In another part of the release it says:

The second exception will permit a person who has purchased a legitimate copy of some categories of copyright material to make a copy in a different format. In particular, this exception will allow individuals to store their personal music collection recorded on CDs, audio tapes or vinyl records in the memory of an MP3 player or home entertainment personal computer. It will also allow people to scan an article from a newspaper they have purchased to save on their computer (although they will not be able to upload it onto the internet). People also will be able to dub their old VHS cassettes onto a DVD.

The Government is mindful consumers may want to use technology to copy audiovisual material (eg. DVDs they have bought) to other devices as well. The Government will monitor the implementation of the scope of the format shifting
exception to review in two years’ time, whether the scope can be expanded to digital audio-visual materials in a way which complies with our international obligations.

This suggests that the protections do not apply to audiovisual materials but that I can copy my CD’s onto my PC and my iPod. It is still not clear whether stripping the DRM off a song and putting it on another type of player is illegal. The phrase “international obligations” is also ringing alarm bells with me:

There will be separate legislation this year dealing with Australia’s remaining obligations under the Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement concerning the liability regime for circumvention of technological protection measures. This issue is under active consideration by the Government.

So does this mean that because of the free trade agreement we will be subject to DMCA style restrictions in Australia? I hope not.

In the Q and A at the bottom of the release we find the follwing 2 points (other points removed for brevity)

Copying music in different formats

1. Will I be able to copy my music collection?

Yes. You can format-shift your music collection from CDs, audio tapes and vinyl records to devices such as an MP3 player, X-Box 360 or home entertainment PC, but only if the original is a legitimate copy that you own and you format-shift for your personal use in a different audio format.
…

9. What if my CD has copy protection applied to it?

The Government is still considering this issue of copy protection.

A “different audio format”. What will they consider to be “different”? There is no mention. Also they say that the jury is still out on copy protection.

I have 2 questions for Mr Ruddock:

1. Will it be legal to circumvent DRM copy protection in order to play DRM protected content on a different device than the one intended by the content vendor as long as it is for personal use?
2. Will he make it illegal for the copyright owner to prevent me from format shifting the copyrighted material?

If he agrees to the first and not the second then we are stuck with pretty much the status quo of the crackers coming up with ways to circumvent copy protection and the copyright owners coming up with new ways to defeat the crackers in a cycle of hack and counter hack. If Australia actually makes it illegal it drives a technological imperative for companies like Apple, Microsoft and Sun to come up with technology solutions to allow me to use the content I have purchased in a reasonable manner without giving free reign to copyright pirates.

Whilst there are certainly censorship implications on this I think that the real issue here is that governments just don’t understand technology and yet they feel that they need to control it. Whether it is Senator Ted Stephens in the US describing the internet as a collection of tubes or attempts to get my local member to recognize the evils of DRM the level of technical knowledge by politicians is laughable at best and frightening at worst. Look at all the aspects of our lives that are regulated by technology and the importance it has in our society and compare that to the level of understanding by our lawmakers. The disconnect scares me a lot.

We might think that because this is India this will never happen in one of our western democracies but if we don’t do something about the level of ignorance by our politicians similar knee jerk catastrophies or worse could easily happen here.

Update: It appears as if the banning was simply a result of a large number of Indian ISP’s getting it wrong.

The issue I raised with Jane was about the plan of SA state premier Mike Rann to abolish the state’s upper house. I can’t begin to express how uneasy about the whole political process in SA this makes me as the upper house allows minor parties that represent a proportion of the whole state of SA to have a voice as opposed to the lower house where the majority of people in a particular electorate elect a member. Jane was of the opinion that this measure wouldn’t be approved at a referendum and that upper house reform was the real agenda which was news to me considering the media reports linked above.  I was particularly unimpressed by the way in which this was announced after the Labor party had won the election but not before. Jane Lomax-Smith is a person that strikes me as being able to put on a particularly polised performance no matter what is going on under the surface so I am never really sure what she is actually thinking. Time will tell as to what happens.

The issue I raised with Kate Ellis was about the way that the DRM reigime being put forward by the major technology vendors (Apple and Microsoft) puts unfair monopoly power in the hands of the content distributors, trampling on the rights of the artists and consumers to sell and use the content in ways that suit them (without infringing copyright that is) I pointed her to some interesting legislation in France as well as to some articles by David Berlind to see if we can get some action. I’m not very hopeful but then again this is the sort of issue that Australia has taken a lead on in the past. Kate strikes me as being a very genuine person but I’m not sure whether the message got home. She didn’t seem to be very technology literate but I’m hoping someone on her staff is.

I was the only one to turn up to that particular meeting so I had good access to both members.

In our post modernist society the most important value is tolerance for the beliefs of others. What people are forgetting is that there are a significant number of people in our society to whom the accepted view of homosexuality is anathema. There is no tolerance shown to such a view in direct contradiction to the view that tolerance is paramount. This, IMHO, is hypocrisy in the extreme. People with such views are likely to be labeled “homophobic” as if they have a disease. Insinuations are likely to be made that they are associated with violence against homosexuals.

Those who are interested in a balanced Christian view of homosexuality may want to check out the book “What’s so Amazing About Grace” by Phillip Yancey. It’s a recommended read in any case .

Back to the South Australian government. The reason that we have children and adults in our society is that children are deemed to need guidance and protection until they reach their majority. This guidance and protection is primarily the responsibility of parents. It is a direct violation of the rights of parents that they are not being given the opportunity to make an informed decision on what their children do or do not get taught at school.

I call on the South Australian Government (who probably don’t read this BLOG ) to give parents more information about this curriculum, give them the option to withdraw their children from this program and to provide alternatives more in keeping with the beliefs and values of their parents.

People interested in more information can read this document.

Food for thought.