At the end of last year, Coast Restaurant was opened in Hervey Bay. I hadn’t been there until early this year, but had heard many great things about it prior to dining there from range of people. I’ve now been there four or five times for dinner, and have been impressed every time. Great food, great wine and just as important, great service.

This week Coast did something which I think is a first for Hervey Bay, and that was a 5 course degustation dinner, and even better, prepared by e’cco bistro’s Philip Johnson.

It was a great night – lots of wine, great lineup of food to try and a great atmosphere – let’s hope events like this continue!

Due to the size of Australia, we have always been behind on many information communication technologies, including both mobile service and access to respectable broadband speeds, if any. What also makes it difficult for those who live outside of the main cities in Australia, is that for internet providers to supply ADSL2 technologies, they (The ISP) need to upgrade infrastructure and equipment – now from an investment point of view, their return on investment is going to be minimal, vs doing it in the city with thousands of subscribers.

By this logic or reasoning, it does seem to make the point, that really, a nationalised system may the only solution, if equality over internet connections is to be achieved.

There has been a lot of good press for the NBN, claiming it will revolutionise the country, take us all new places and overall be in a better place. I really believe this is more hype than logic.

Over on Delimiter (A News and Tech blog) they have run a number of stories on the NBN, both, for and against.

There has been a great story, that has generated a lot of interest, and it’s quite an good read, it’s titled “Do we even need a Fibre National Broadband Network“.  It really covers a lot of problems with the network, and how in many cases, people will be no better off than what they have now. Things like capacity to other countries, and will be no better off. How “E-Health” is supposed to benefit, when “Regular Health” is still a huge issue for every state in the country, number of doctors, nurses, beds etc – these haven’t been sorted in real life, so how are we going to go with doing it over the internet?

While I see huge benefits for business, using such networks, I also see the waste. If you look at the cost per household – $5k (or so) – I could imagine the NBN being put into my Grandmother’s house, who doesn’t a) have a computer, but b) if she did, would be more content with a 1.5 or 5mb link. Heck, she can’t use a DVD player, how am I supposed to train her to use IPTV? Hulu or iView or whatever the case may be.

The flip side of the coin, the Liberal party has really shot themselves in the foot, and not wanting to admit they probably should adopt some of the ideas that Labor have setup with the NBN, instead, they claim that Fibre is a bad technology, and a whole array of bad arguments for it.

This video clip was on Yes We Canberra – and it really does sum up how the Liberal / LNP / Coalition think of ICT, from the current statements.

This isn’t to say I completely support Labor or the NBN, and when you watch this video from Yes We Canberra – it does make you think a bit, and put the NBN and it’s $50bn price tag, back into perspective – and what our real priories are or should be.

So what is my stance then?

I don’t like the Liberal party’s idea on this. They don’t seem to want to value the ICT of Australia as much as they should. What they are claiming to do, is a step in the right direction with some key infrastructure, however it wont do an awful lot for end users. Other hand, Labor have not had a good record with deploying spending projects like this, although the NBN is on budget at present, nothing to say it wont blow out and cost us a fortune on something that isn’t that critical.

There is constantly issues with sites like Facbeook, YouTube, Myspace, where people are bullying, trolling, or just being tools (for one of a better term), however to be a mennace on these sites, you had to create  fake profiles and email accounts, and it is time consuming. Formspring allows its functionality with no prior screening.

So, in essence, it’s a pretty pointless site. However, people start using services like this, and get people asking questions. The first kinds of questions you’ll see straight away, are have you had sex, or are you gay, pointless, immature questions that are only there to antagonise or upset the author.

What’s more frustrating is to see people use this service, then finally wake up and realise, hang on, this totally stupid and then start to bag the application as if it caused the bullying or harassment that went on. Even though the authors knew specifically what Formspring was doing, and not doing.

I like the following quotes on gawker.com

Formsping.Me should come with a warning label you have to check off before you use it: BEWARE. WILL CAUSE LINGUISTIC, INTELLECTUAL, AND EMOTIONAL DIARRHEA.

This is a dangerous, mischievous platform of oversharing that is, at best, indulgent, and at worse, the most self-serving experience one can create for themselves on the internet from every which angle you approach it. For the people asking the questions, it’s an anonymous comment box that they can inundate their interviewees with candid interrogation after interrogation.

For the people answering the questions, it fulfills so many awesomely narcissistic desires: you’re on a stage, you’re interested in by people asking the questions, or if asked about any number of various topics, the desire to feel like some kind of authority on something. At the very least, someone wants to hear something from you, and you get to sit there and think of an answer. And if there’s anything better than being desired, its having someone take some kind of interest in you.

Read the rest of the article here.

As you know our esteemed Premier Bligh of QLD suggested that the blood alcohol should be reduced from .05 to .02 in an effort to stop car incidents and death on the road. The only problem is that this idea will not do anything. Similar to the proposed “NetFilter” this concept will only punish the innocent and do little to fix the underlying problem.

The biggest incidents on the road are caused by people who well and truly know that they are in no state to drive, but continue to do so. But by brining the BAC back to .02 people who have had one drink after work may now find they are .021 which will be a punishable offence, while Jimmy Dunk is well and truly intoxicated will get in his car and accidentally crash his car into a funeral or  drift off the road onto the footpath and kill an innocent pedestrian and the examples go on. These are the drivers who need to be cracked down upon, not someone who’s had an innocent drink, and now is unable to drive home out of fear of being booked a “drink driver”.

Similarly the NetFilter which seems to come in and out of the spotlight, if fully rolled out, it will punish the people who are innocently using the internet (both by blocking potentially legitimate content, and by service degradation) while the true perverts who wish to look at sexually explicit content will be able to bypass the Federal Govt’s filter in a matter of minutes.. Work that one out.

Both these issues come back to people who believe that it’s the governments job to somehow make out lives easier or safer by trying to do these things, and not taking any personal responsibility for their own actions.