Take your Internet Filter and [content blocked] because Elephants can't Dance

So usually you would crack your head open if my Blog was a pool and you were to dive in. A shallow flippant rant on a topic that has captured my attention, "look a shiny thing." Rarely enraged or motivated to protest, I have never been to a rally, signed a petition or followed someone with a cause. This of course excludes my catholic school upbringing. I shall say no more on that subject...except to say what comes after indoctraseven?
This Blog looks at the Internet Filter proposed, censorship, supply and demand, freedom and rights, some excerpts from Lady Chatterley’s lover and prohibition.
P.S That is Pyramid writing, where the first paragraph covers all topics to be discussed, neat hey, I learn new things more gooderer writer is.

The recent Internet filter proposition has got my goat, where the hell did that saying come from? I know I live regionally and should probably know. If its purely a livestock stealing reference then fine, maybe I'll start a new one, "Yea he has really nabbed my alpaca, I'm not happy," see how people go with that one. Good intentions are one thing, and taking action also has merit, but going down a road clearly in opposition to the general consensus of the masses with a plan that has more problems then an Icelandic Air traffic controller and I predict will disappear quicker then a fart in a fan factory. The Government will never be able to effectively regulate a thing such as the Internet; elephants can’t dance, that is, big regulated organisations cannot keep up with a free and dynamic environment such as the Internet. Did you notice the capital I in Internet, it is a place, a borderless country with no rules, no boundaries. The Internet has characteristics of a living entity, new sites grow and die, content is added and becomes stale and dated, it has areas that are not published, as well as direct links to people's computers at home.

Internet Map:


(Source: Someone who likes Start trek and has too much time)

It has many aspects of the free market economy. Example, I want to purchase a bit of software that crops photographs, I can search Google, find any number of items, and download the best or cheapest. There are no barriers to entry and shipping is done over the Internet. This is a very exciting time, never has intellectual property had so much liquidity. It is improbable, yet possible for a homeless person to go to there local library and using free software, revolutionise the whole industry and become a millionaire with a piece of software they have written in notepad on windows 98.

The Internet filter, with the proposed structure, would add little benefit, as it doesn’t block Peer 2 Peer file sharing programs and doesn't block sites with a HTTPS as opposed t HTTP (The S is for Secure) sites and so is basically irrelevant. Lets say for a second that it did work, all of a sudden all the viewers of the discussing material will start looking for a new source. The demand wont stop, and so 1+1= the supply will shift. A similar style of black market supply and demand can be seen in the Prohibition in America from 1920 to 1933 where Alcohol was band, giving rise to an underground bootleg movement, providing an excellent platform for growth for organised crime. Amateur-hibition, that’s what I am dubbing it. So if we apply that Black market Business model to the illicit material the filter is trying to reduce, we may see a reduction in the amount downloaded over the Internet, but a huge increase in social groups meeting on a Tuesday night to...eh...build a boat and swap boat building DVD's, yea that’s what were doing. Ok I just got a shiver. So yea there is a pathway I don't think we have thought about enough.

Banning books, banning of ideas, the constricting of freedom, that is what it boils down to. The sign of an intelligent mind is to be able to receive an idea, chew it like bubble gum and then reject it. I think I may have paraphrased a brilliant writer and added bubble gum as my addition. I may go to writing hell for that one. I guess writing hell would be writing on season 42 of two and a half men, working with constantly blunt pencils on a team of 23 high level autistic people on work experience and finding out every episode is censored and doesn't make it to air.


The book Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned in Australia due to the graphic nature of its content. The author dropped the F bomb four times and the C bomb 10 times, that Foxy Cat is crazy! If he had of used fiddlesticks and lady garden it would have been fine. I am sure as the censorship debate raged excerpts would have been read out sections of the book as part of question time. Brilliant, the mental image of these stale old men, grey wispy hair and tweed suits smelling of cigarettes and 70's sexism, still able to look down their big red noses as some young whipper-snapper read out sentences about sweaty bodies interlocked and firm bosoms heaving. There were a few hot members ...of parliament that day. "Order! Order me a copy of that saucy stuff. "The member for Kings Cross will remain dressed"

So stick censorship in your [content blocked] and put that into you mother's [content blocked] also. [Content blocked] the step on the way into Parliament and don't [content blocked] what the government does. The word that was blocked in the previous sentence was "mind." Go back and read the paragraph again swapping "content blocked" with "mind." To censor something is a very powerful action in itself, especially if people do not have the option to evaluate for themselves.

Censorship and protection are interesting concepts. I believe Australia is a very heavily regulated society. Honestly I never noticed until I went over seas. Being fined by a police officer for not wearing a bicycle helmet is ridiculous and here is where the argument is applied "but it saves lives" yes it does, but it is a sacrifice of freedom and choice. It is situations where I can park my common sense as the warm blanket of legislation protect me. Of course it saves lives and people should be educated in the dangers, the risk, and born of that education, make an informed decision. Who knows, the cause, effect, decision triangle may sink in as a habit that could flow on into other aspects of life.
I read a survey recently looking at behavior and risk, the survey measured the speed people drove across a level crossing when there were no warning lights as trains potentially approached. The cars had an average, with some people going faster, accepting more risk. As the trees were gradually felled on the side of the crossing, and visibility increased, the average speed increased. People have a level of acceptable risk.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and the next thing you know your fishing company is being bought out in a hostile takeover, which seriously undervalues the assets. Damn Bastard, "I taught you how to fish, and this is the thanks I get!" The power of stopping someone accessing content is nothing compared with the power of empathy. "Teach your children well." Cat Stevens just sat down beside me. "Teach them empathy." He has his acoustic guitar out and has started into Father and Son. "Let them understand the beauty they possess inside, and the underlying problems that drive the behaviors that we would ban." I am standing up on a soapbox gesticulating wildly as Cat hammers out that sweet acoustic melody. "Bestow the knowledge that with great freedom comes great responsibility!" A little bit of spit came out as I yelled; I may be getting too emotional. In a frenzy of acoustic harmony and nonconformist rage the world is changed and freedom is restored."



The other option is Cat Stevens and I are black-flagged as dissidents, woken in the middle of the night by homeland security and disappeared for questioning for a period of up to 48 hours without a warrant or reason supplied. Liberties are never taken in bounds; they are chiseled away with quiet scratches, careful to keep from stirring the complacent masses chewing their bubble gum. Now back to the television. Again with the paraphrasing the quotes and simply adding bubble gum, what is with that?

Jonathan Nolan

Spare Change

People don't change, that is the way the saying goes, perhaps along the way our perceptions change and that is all. It is a depressing thought, I have read that the human psyche is formed by the age of five, from that point the windows or filter in which we view the world has hardened, the dye cast, the concrete foundations never to be further molded before setting. The band "The Doors" is based on a book that looks at this very concept, The Doors of Perception by Aldus Huxley "If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." I suggest all people read this book prior to age five while tripping on acid and listening to break on through to the other side, being played in reverse on a turntable.



If you are older then five, then stop reading and give up, it is too late for you. I would like to read the following books in my life, but accompanied by a dash of vodka with a twist of context. I want to read Robinson Caruso while lost on an Island, read Dracula while traveling through Eastern Europe in winter with a hot sadist gothic chic. I want to give away everything I own and live on the streets of London, my companion a pit bull with a black spot over his eye with a copy of Oliver Twist in me pocket. I want to take "Love in the time of Cholera" and adapt if for the present day.” Love in the time of H1N1." Whenever I travel on public transport I cover my books with "The Idiots Guide to Windows 98," to see the looks of amazement and the odd offer of help from people who work in I.T and cannot handle it.


The definition of a decision is to cut off from all other options, similar to incise. I am not going to get into Latin, except to say "Carpe Dium" which is "Eat fish." Why decision when I am speaking of change? A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, or an apology RSVP saying, "I would love to come to your thing, but it is a thousand miles. Maybe next year you'll have your thing a bit closer if you want people to come you selfish bastard." As Tony Robbins said at a recent seminar, "When life gives you lemons...say fuck it and ditch."
Decision is the first step in change, the spark to ignite the fuel, which must burn bright enough to buckle the existing structures of habit. Wow! I love my metaphors, like a fat kid loves cake; to 50 cent coin a phrase. If there was an automatic metaphor writing application I would buy it, Meta4, and coming soon Meta5, the Rolls Royce of Writing.

Bang! I write bang when I am happy with myself, looking around the VLine carriage tempted to stand up, "Excuse me if I could have everyone’s attention, I have just written an extremely witty phrase and I would like to share it with you all." There is a group of professionals that commute and some seem interesting. There of course is a minority, the 80-20 that exists everywhere. Shazza and Kimmy will get on the train, flanked by any number of toddlers; an atmosphere of chaos, noise and conflict fills every serene crack with in a 30-foot radius. There is always an issue too, a lost ticket, the wrong train, a distressed phone call, the child falls and takes three massive shocked inhalations in a row before a cacophony screaming ensues. A mixture of tears and mothers consoling hand make a clean spot on the child. It is the comments that get me, "Yea she's sixteen now, but I don't let her smoke at the table in front of her kids." What the? It is just like on Leave it to Beaver or the Wonder Years... no wait, it is not at all. So how does change relate to this situation? It doesn't at all, I just needed to get that out there in order to maintain my serine outward appearance as the unruly rabble run back and forth to the drink fountain, high pitched yelps emitted at random intervals, like some kind of an advanced sonar which enables the mother to monitor them subconsciously, leaving her free to focus the entire caliber and capacity of the creative mind on the cold fusion reactor designs she is working on, hidden in the pages of the Glam magazine.

I guess everyone aspires to be better, to grow, for knowledge, for wealth (or the freedom wealth brings), a better car, a longer holiday. Some people are happy with the cave and a curtain, simply aiming for a dwelling and privacy. I would like to be 'never have to work again' sort of rich, but currently the only item in my life with the capacity to take me there is my Friday lotto ticket, a sobering thought, some times I write things and then realise their truth, a laceration with my subconscious pen. When I refer to capacity I am looking at the ability, no matter how slight, that your occupation or the side project could be the next big thing and make you a million. Google was started in a garage with a dream and a little sweat. My grandfather always told me, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Hey that sweaty guy working in his mum’s garage has a great idea, give him a Ferrari.
The 1978 Microsoft team...


I sometimes fear the challenge and discomfort I find in change. Deep down I know change is good, it pushes boundaries, moves us out of our comfort zone, forces growth, until you don’t even recognize the place you were. You look back at the photographs of yourself and letters you have written and see the flaws and naivety only in the places you have grown. I work in health and wonder, will we look back on medicine today in a hundred years the way we look back on medicine from the start of the 20th century? Surgeons will talk of the dark days of the 21st century when patients were actually opened up on the table, and where secondary infections killed people.

I tried Rock Climbing two days ago, amazing. I got about 20 feet up and then did not want to fall backwards into my secure rope and harness, why? The same reason I don't like to fly all that much, I hate when things are out of my control or when I rely on the untested with my precious mortality. One day I will let go, it’s all a state of mind, although "they” did link a hormone, which is in excess in bullfighters and is almost non-existent in people who fear leaving their house. So how do I normally change this? I commit, “I am going to touch the 60 ft roof and then jump off backwards the next time I climb!” Done, I make those commitments sometimes in a puff of motivation, which I regret immensely when I am hanging off a wall 21 feet off the ground sometime next week. "Damn damn stupid goal setting self, look what you’ve got us into, look how high the roof is. Sitting there on the train all motivated and now look what we have to do!" I will only worry when the conversation becomes two sided. "Jonathan, it is your therapist here, I would like to speak to personality number 34 please." I wonder if split personality disorders have to pay a group rate for a therapy session… these are all good questions.

I like the use of the Phoenix as an analogy for change as well as rebirth. The phoenix is a mythical creature rising from the ashes, reborn from flames.


I have been off cigarettes now for five weeks (ashes reminded me) It is an interesting change, you become aware of all the triggers in life that link old habits and inhibit change, and there are hundreds, the end of dinner, a movie, a car, train, bus ride, a beer basically everything is a well worn path we seem to want to walk, like a homing Gauloises. Ahh that smooth Laramie taste, sweet dark nipple, I will always miss you. (What? it's very addictive)



More coffee discussions, deliberations, chewing of the fat are needed, but maybe no more coffee for me today, in fact I have made a decision, I have cut off all other options.


Jonathan