From one Extreme to the Other

After yesterday's little piece of ludditeism about 'Why I don't do Facebook', and in response to the comment there from Penni, I thought I'd answer her question: Do I want an iPad?

Well, that kinda depends.

Don't get me wrong - I love mine. I'm glad I got it, and the longer I have it, the more useful it's proving to be, but it definitely wouldn't be for everyone.

So, for what it's worth, here's my take on it:

1. Things I love

• The Tactile Experience. Let's get the superficial one out of the way first, shall we? The iPad is, purely and simply, just lovely to touch. Running your finger across the screen feels nice. The back is comfortably curved and carved out of the same brushed aluminium as the Macbook Pro computers. It's pretty to look at; when you activate it, the resolution and picture quality is superb, photographs look stunning, hi-def apps are a pleasure to behold. From a purely aesthetic point of view, the iPad is a great piece of design.
  
  
• Email. For me, this is a biggie. The email app is fast, efficient, and easy to use. In terms of having easily portable access to my email, and the capacity to quickly read and reply to long emails, without having to poke away at the tiny keys on my phone, the iPad is ideal for me.
  
  
• Portable documents. Tomorrow I have to go to a meeting where I'll require something in the order of 45 different documents. Instead of lugging along a big lever arch file of printouts, I've simply dumped the PDF's into my iPad. This has some nice environmental aspects to it, too.
  
  
• Mobile internet. While in my meeting, I'll be able to easily read webcomics under the table, without having to squint at the tiny screen on my phone. It'll also be very useful when we're in Perth in a couple of weeks, staying in a house with no internet access. (Yes, they do still exist...) It's also proven very handy already in a couple of meetings where things have needed to be looked up quickly - being able to just pull info off the web in seconds is a very handy thing indeed.
  
  
• The calendar function. Is nice. And clear. And handy. Though I have had a few issues Synching it properly with my Macbook.
  
  
• The e-readers. Now, I'm still more a fan of the 'real' book; I don't particularly like reading off a screen, even one like the iPad's which has been well designed for the purpose. BUT there are some real upsides to having e-reading capability in this digital age. Most notably, the ability to download free first chapters from Amazon (to the free Kindle app) and preview before buying the real thing. This I'm liking a lot.
  
  
• Magazines and Newspapers. At this point, there's a dearth of decent Australian newspaper content for the iPad (The only app that I've been able to find is the one for 'The Australian' which is (a) a crappy newspaper and (b)mainly made up of content you can already get for free from their website. This, though, will no doubt change, and fast. A number of commentators have suggested that the iPad might well be the saviour of the newspaper, and I can see why. At the moment, I use the ABC website for my news fixes, and it's pretty good. I've also got the app which allows me to purchase 'The Monthly' direct to my iPad, for about $5.00, in full text and imagery detail. This is a really nice feature. I've also rediscovered my love of comics (sorry, graphic novels) though the Marvel and DC comic apps, which function in a similar way.

The Bookshelf of Tomorrow...?

2. Things I Don't Love Quite so Much...

• The keyboard interface is a bigger version of the one on the iPhone, and works well enough, but careful proofreading is required. It is possible to buy a small wireless keyboard for the iPad, and this would be a worthwhile investment if planning to produce anything substantive on it. I tried a couple of blog posts, and ended up switching back to my computer, just because it was a lot easier to type.
  
  
• Lack of a camera. A lot has been made of this missing feature, and rightly so. Given the web-based functionality of the device, in this day and age it's just plain silly not to include a camera for skyping purposes and so on. Still, I guess they have to save something for the next model.
  
  
• The speakers. Are good, but not brilliant. They're also all located on the same side of the chassis, which effectively negates any proper stereo effect, unless you're wearing headphones. With headphones, however, the results are beautiful.
  
  
• Calendar syncing - as mentioned earlier, I've had a few teething issues here, which I suspect are more the result of user error than any major glitches in the system. It's not the most intuitive aspect of the device, though, which is the problem, from my point of view.

All in all then, the iPad may be for you, or not. Or you might want to hold out a couple of years until the next generation of them comes out, by which point they will have addressed a lot of these sort of issues. There's no doubt, though, from my perspective, and especially if you combine it with something like 'mobile me' (which I haven't done), that this is a pretty revolutionary and useful bit of technology.

So, do you want an iPad? I'd say definitely. Who wouldn't? (that's rhetorical, by the way, 12 months ago I wouldn't have. See yesterday's post for details)

Do you need an iPad? That depends very much on you.

A Status Update:

This afternoon I started a Facebook page.

Now don't get excited and go looking for me there. If I've done it properly, you shouldn't be able to find me. Which, I know, kind of defeats the purpose.

But, the thing is, it's not for me, it's for a class I'm teaching next semester, just an information conduit for the students, to save them having to wade through the university email system to get info about what's going on in the course. I'm told that several of them use Facebook quite often.

And nothing more.

You see, the thing is, I don't do Facebook. I'm one of those deeply suspicious and slightly paranoid types who just blanches at the thought of putting a 'personal profile' up online for all to see. Or even for those I choose to let in. The idea of being 'tagged' in photos that I have no control over irritates the life out of me. It's why I like blogging, I think. So setting up an account for this class is really a step into a frightening new world for me.

There are a few other reasons I don't 'do' Facebook.

• Time. I have precious little of it to play with as it is. And from what I've seen, Facebook is one of those things which has the potential to just suck down hours and hours of your life, if you are the type of person to get obsessive about these sort of things. Which I am.
  
  
• Privacy. I read an article on Facebook somewhere recently. I think it might have been in Time magazine, but aren't completely certain. It had a lot of stuff in it about how the rise of Facebook has 'redefined privacy'. That's fine, but I liked the old definition. I already run a blog, a website, a reading and writing profile at Goodreads, and have a slight addiction to Twitter. And I think that's about as much of me as the internet deserves.
  
  
• Good old fashioned ludditeism. You know, for someone as oddly fascinated and addicted to technology as me (gently strokes iPad, which hasn't left my side for a week), I've got this little thread of my personality that just plain distrusts technological change. I fight against it, but every now and then it rears its ugly head. I suspect this is one of those occasions.
  
  
• Plain and simple pig-headedness. This is another of those traits of mine. I think mum must have overdone it with the old "Just because everyone else is jumping off a bridge, doesn't mean that you should..." type of wisdoms when I was a kid, because I can tend to be, well, rather contrary. And the more people tell me I really should do something, the longer I'm likely to hold out against it. I was the third last person in the universe to get a mobile phone. I was still using dial up internet in 2005.
  
  
• **See below
  

Of course, I know that I'm in an increasing minority, but that doesn't bother me. I also know that there are a lot of very good reasons for joining Facebook, and that a lot of people get a whole pile of pleasure from being members. I know about people for whom Facebook or other social networking sites have been - quite literally - lifesavers, and for whom the opportunity to build and maintain online relationships with other people has allowed them to escape their own circumstances and live comparatively normal lives.

So this isn't in any way an attack upon Facebook, nor upon those who use and love it. It's more an observation that social media is many things to many people, and that it's a good idea to be a little choosy when selecting the various aspect of your online persona. And for me, Facebook just doesn't sit well.

Now Twitter, on the other hand....

*In the interests of disclosure, I should also add that when I eventually fold on these things, I tend to fold rather hard. For example the fact that until 6 months ago I was a militant PC user, and held Mac products in complete and utter disregard. Now I own all of them. Now that I've dabbled in the dark arts of Facebook, it's quite possible that in two weeks I'll have a full profile up and running, and will be spending 22 hours a day writing comments on people's walls, while playing Mafia wars at the same time...

** I should also probably add 'ignorance' to the list. I'm not fully cognisant of the ins and outs of Facebook, and can't be bothered becoming so. It would be a good idea to read everything in this post in the light of that fact.

Uhmm.. So you know that whole blogging every day thing?

Okay, so I've had a few issues the last couple of days. Mainly to do with the fact that at about 3.00 Friday afternoon my voice went all wonky, then just went away completely. By Friday evening, I was a croaking whispering disaster area. I spent most of Saturday in bed (which wasn't nearly as good as it sounds), and a good chunk of today, also.

So apologies from the disease factory. I'm going to work from home tomorrow, so as not to infect everyone else at work with whatever this lurgy is, and will hopefully get something a little more substantive posted then.

Or I might just stay in bed again.

Only a Quick One Today

Just to point out that yesterday, I posted my political rant, and then this afternoon this happened

So I guess this means the PM is reading this blog.

At least, that's the explanation I like ;)

A Lefty Political Rant. (Because this *is* a blog, after all)

*This is probably the rantiest thing I've ever posted. Don't Say I Didn't Warn You...*

In his penultimate address to the nation, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (Currently on holidays, still tweeting rather forlornly under the "KevinRuddPM" username) made a point of emphasising that under his continued leadership (Which, at that point, he had no idea was going to be approximately nine hours) Australian Government Policy wouldn't "Lurch to the right on the issue of asylum seekers"

It's an interesting remark for him to have made, in the light of all that's followed.

I'll admit that when Julia Gilliard took over the top job, I came to it from a conflicted point of view.

On the one hand, I was thrilled to witness the arrival of our first female PM, although I felt a little cheated that it didn't happen at an election, and thus didn't feel like a real achievement. (And yes, I do know how the Australian electoral system works, and that the PM isn't elected by the people but by the party and all that, but it is what it is. It didn't feel quite real.)

I also like Julia Gilliard, as both a person and as a politician. She's from the Victorian left faction, which is where my natural sympathies tend to lie. She also didn't have my mother shot by her security detail when mum accosted her in the carpark at Canberra airport a couple of years ago, which gets her big brownie points in my book.

BUT - I'm also in the school of thought that believes you don't oust a sitting Prime Minister unless things are terminal. As in, unless he or she is regularly appearing on the balcony of Parliament House with a rifle and shooting at visiting schoolkids, or something similar. You sure as shit don't do it just months before a federal election, which, according to a lot of the pundits I've read, you're not likely to lose in any case! You don't do it to a PM who has successfully steered the country through the GFC without putting it into recession. You don't do it in response to pressure from the mining lobby, and you don't do it at the behest of the NSW right. Call me old fashioned, but an awful lot about the spill of June 24th just plain rankled with me.

Still, politics is a dirty game and, true believer or not, sometimes there's no point maintaining your rage. All you can do is accept things for what they are, offer your regrets to the outgoing PM, don't 'unfollow' the poor blighter on Twitter, and look forward to happier times ahead.

Which was my plan.

Until yesterday, when our new PM announced her intention to address the Asylum seeker issue through the establishment of an offshore processing facility in East Timor. Or, put another way, Pacific Solution 2.0 (And, despite protests to the contrary, there's an awful lot to suggest that this 'solution' to the refugee issue isn't meeting our international human rights obligations so much as 'managing' them for political harm minimisation.)

"Lurch to the Right" Indeed. Makes you wonder just what sort of pressures the former PM was under in regard to this area of policy.

In her 'softening up' speech, the day before announcing the East Timor proposal, the PM suggested that the debate on asylum seekers was hindered by the fact that people felt the need to be 'politically correct' in regard to the issue, and that everyone should openly express their concerns and worries.

Okay then, here's mine:

I'm concerned and worried that our politicians and BOTH major political parties spend far too much time worrying about and pandering to the perceived political clout of ignorant, racist elements of our society in marginal electorates than they do considering the humane and morally just possibilities of the asylum issue.

I'm concerned and worried that our elected leaders, who should be leading and taking the high ethical, moral and social road are so scared of taking a hit in the polls that they would prefer to give ongoing credibility to inhumane and paranoid opinions of talkback radio jocks and bigoted rednecks. And I don't even care all that much that the bigoted rednecks might be a major demographic in the aforementioned marginal electorates - if enough pollies from both sides of the equation had a little more moral fibre in regard to this issue, then perhaps it wouldn't be an issue. At the moment, I'm pissed off at both sides of politics, but I'll still end up having to vote for one of them; let's extend that privilige to all Australians.

I'm concerned and worried that we as a country allow and encourage certain elements of our media to fuel and fan the fires of ignorance, and to make 'issues' out of xenophobia, rather than trying to encourage thoughtful and open debate.

I'm concerned and worried that our willingness to embrace the issue of 'illegal immigrants' (who aren't in any technical sense of the word, illegal) and 'border security' and turn it into a three-yearly palaver of fear-mongering is putting us increasingly out of step with world standards and with the obligations of civilised nations.

This is the point that Tim Hollo - Greens media advisor - made beautifully when writing for Crikey yesterday:

Australia is not an island.

Not on this increasingly small globe, it isn’t. And it’s not earth-shattering to note that population is an issue of far greater significance globally than it is locally. Population stresses overseas dwarf any here in Australia. With business-as-usual approaches to foreign policy, aid and climate, those stresses will inevitably boil over and inexorably head our way.

And, here's Barry Cassidy, writing at The Drum, on the issue, taking a somewhat more balanced approach to mine.

Of course, it's all very well for me to sit here and rant away. What about a solution?

Well, for what it's worth, here's mine.

Go ahead with the proposed 'Regional Processing Facility'. But do it properly, not as the cover for yet another shonky 'keep them offshore' campaign. Get the region on board. New Zealand, Indonesia, East Timor - all the local stakeholders. Put together a joint funding plan and build a state-of-the art immigration processing facility where unofficial immigrants can have their applications for asylum assessed, processed and acted upon with a minimum of psychological and emotional harm.

But - and here's the thing - build the damn thing in Australia. In a capital city - Perth or Darwin, perhaps, where there's appropriate infrastructure, a large labour pool to help with the processing, and the capacity to build the requisite facilities at minimum expense, without having to ship supplies and expertise to some out-of-the-way island. Build it somewhere with the infrastructure to allow pending applicants to live comparatively 'normal' lives, preferably in the community, while they have their applications processed. In short, take responsibility for our international obligations; don't just manage them along the most politically expedient lines.

Yes, it means allowing asylum seekers ashore on the mainland, and yes, that gives us certain obligations to them, but so what? As a signatory to the UN declaration of human rights, this shouldn't be a big deal. We have those obligations anyway. The moment one of our patrol boats - flying the Australian Naval Ensign from its stern - intercepts a refugee boat in international waters, we have those obligations. The moment one of our coastwatch planes identifies a boat of asylum seekers approaching Australian waters, we have those obligations. The moment we sent our troops into Afghanistan, we took on an obligation to the people of that country and - from my point of view, at least - this is just another aspect of that same obligation.

You might be getting the impression that I'm rather pissed about this. And I am. For a plethora of reasons, but primarily because this is not the sort of government I signed up for when I voted labour in 1997*. This is the sort of government I voted to get rid of.


*okay, so I'm a decade out, unlike our asylum seeker policy, which is 50 years out...

Edit to add THIS LINK which is, I think, the best thing I've read to date on this subject matter, and speaks my argument above with a great deal more clarity.

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged....

Nothing like a bit of old fashioned biblical wisdom to kick off a post. Especially this one which - according to my blogger records - is my 100th post! (Actually, now I think about it, it's probably about my 110th, because before I set up shop here at blogspot, I kicked things off over at Goodreads)

Either way, it's an achievement that calls for celebration. Or at least a biblical title. Just because.

At the moment, I'm buried in the middle of judging for the ACT Book of the Year Award. This means that I've got until the middle of August to read through about 25 books and then pick a single 'Book of the Year' from among them.

Naturally, I can't say anything about the specifics here, but it's probably okay to mention that they're a diverse range of books, covering just about every possible genre, readership, subject matter and style.

Of course, as a writer, I've been on the other side of the equation many times: having your books entered for various prizes and competitions is all part of the publishing game. And in all honesty, it can be one of the more difficult aspects of the job. Of course, it's lovely when you win one; it means recognition, praise, sometimes even a cheque.

Prizes are also important in that they contribute to the cultural zeitgeist: the type of books selected for shortlisting in a significant prize like the Miles Franklin or the Booker will often reveal an awful lot about a society's concerns and preconceptions.

And then there's the value that big prizes add to various fields of creative practice: earlier this year, it was announced that the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award would be expanded to include two new categories: Children's and Young Adult Fiction. With a tax-free prize of $100,000 per category, this is by far and away the richest and most lucrative prize for children's and YA writing in the country. For one lucky Aussie writer (and it won't, sadly, be me. At least not this year,) that prize has the potential to make an enormous difference to their writing career - aside from the prestige and profile that'll come with it, there's also the fact that - for most of us - 100 grand is an unthinkable amount of income - it'll allow the winner to actually write for a while, instead of having to eke out their living in other ways.

Aside from the benefits to the individual winner, though, there's also the broader cultural consideration: the addition of these two categories, and the placing of them on equal footing with the 'adult' literature and 'history' categories is a significant shot in the arm for all Australian writers of children's and YA fiction, because it's a very positive indication of wider acceptance of the importance of children's and YA literature in the broader literary discourse. (I actually talked about this on The Book Show on Radio National earlier on this year - link here, if you're interested) Just the fact that RN was prepared to run a 20 minute discussion on the subject is a sign of the impact that prizes of this magnitude have in terms of a field of writing's cultural capital.

But, of course, competitions need to be judged, and the process of judging requires judges, and as soon as you find yourself in that position, you quickly come to the unpleasant realisation that the process of judging other people's creativity is, ultimately, a process concerned more with exclusion than with inclusion. It's a process of bringing to bear your own personal experiences, likes, dislikes, knowledge and opinions on the creative output of other people, most of whom wil generally be very different from you. It is, in short, a horribly subjective process, no matter how much you wish it would be otherwise.

As a writer, I work very hard not to tie any self worth to my successes or failures in literary prizes - you can't afford to. It's difficult, though, and I know writer's who've been crushed at being overlooked in competitions which they felt their 'babies' should have won. And, with a different set of judges, perhaps they might have.

Because from a judge's point of view, that's the biggest challenge - reading these books and knowing from experience the hours of labour behind every last one of them, and that it's my job to help select one - just one - for the honour of being 'the winner'. Yes, it's a subjective process. It has to be. But it's an important process, too - it's a contribution to broader society, and someone needs to do it.

Ultimately, all I can do is read each book with care and an open mind, talk honestly and thoughtfully about them with the other judges, and we'll see where we end up. And whichever book does eventually get across the line, it's important to remember that the selection of a 'winner' is a judgement upon the perceived merits of that one book - not the perceived weaknesses of all the others.

A Cold Morning and Me.

There's just something about cold mornings which really appeals to me. In that way, I'm perfectly suited to life here in Canberra.

This morning, when I got out of bed at 7.00, it was a heady -3.5 degrees outside, and the view through the kitchen window was of a world rimed with white. The frost was so heavily settled that for a moment or two I actually thought it might have snowed during the evening: the roof of the house across the road was coated with a thin skin of darkly glimmering ice. In the vegie garden, our sage bush glistened silver. Out beside the BBQ, the black oven mitt which I'd accidentally left out there last night while retrieving our dinner from the Weber was frozen firmly onto the glass top of our patio table, and cocooned with frost.

Stepping out into the dawn, still dressed in my flannel PJ's and a dressing gown, the cold seared the back of my mouth and my breath clouded and hung, motionless around my head forseveral seconds. Even through my heavy-soled ugg boots, I fancied I could feel the cold radiating upwards from the ground. Not a bird called, not a soul moved, the sun was hidden behind the wreathing fog. Yesterday's washing hung stiff and solid on the clothesline - cardboard t shirts and rigid the towels that we'd used to wash the dog on the weekend.

On these mornings, you feel the cold as though from outside yourself; beyond your senses. It's more than just the numbing of skin and the prickling of tiny hairs. On these mornings, the cold is a light blanket; enfolding, embracing; it doesn't flow through you so much as wrap itself around you and settle over your whole self.

On these mornings the cold brings with it an odd, almost indefinable sense of tranquility; as through the world has stopped, paused for thought, just ceased - momentarily - to function, perhaps in contemplation of the day and week ahead.

Back in the kitchen the coffee machine hisses, the heater thrums warm air into the room, Radio National chatters softly in the corner, and from his bedroom I can hear Toby starting to stir. I sip my coffee - the heat of it ticklish in my still chilled mouth - and allow the thawing of it to creep through me.

I really like cold mornings.