SBS TV's "Nerds FC" would be one of the better reality TV shows, except for one minor omission ... it hasn't shown much of our unlikely bunch of heroes learning to play the game.
Yes, the team building session, singing and dancing lessons, adventure training and fashion makeover were entertaining, but I would find the show more interesting if it concentrated more on soccer and less on the character building.
The government recently announced changes to copyright laws that seemed to contain an element of common sense. Optimism soon changed to disappointment after reading the fine print.
The proposed changes to consumer copyright law aren't so generous after all. Time shifting TV programs and ripping your legally bought CD so you can listen to it on your MP3 player won't be as straight forward as it first sounded. It's hardly surprising. The politicians don't appear to understand the technology, and the media companies want to maximise profits by forcing consumers to buy the same movie / song / program more than once for different media formats.
The legislators haven't grasped the difference between 'content,' ie the song, movie, etc, and the 'media,' ie, the format on which the content is stored. Existing copyright law doesn't differentiate between the content and the media, and allows the producers to control both.
When a CD or DVD is bought, the major cost is for the content. The cost of the media is minimal. Purchasing a CD or DVD buys a licence that allows the purchaser to privately use the content in perpetuity, but as things stand, only on the original media.
Consumers are not allowed to make backup copies of digital content that they've paid for, but if the media is damaged, or in time becomes obsolete, they have to buy the content again. It is scandalous that the producers expect, and the law tries to enforce, consumers to pay for the same thing more than once.
In the absence of being able to create legal backups, media companies should have to honour the paid licence by replacing the damaged / obsolete media for the cost of the media only. In addition, as a licence fee has been paid, there should be no restriction on shifting the content from one format to another as long as it is for personal use.
Of course, we all know the sentiments expressed above aren't going to happen.
What will happen is that consumers will ignore the largely unenforceable copyright laws and use whatever available technology it takes to backup the original media and shift the content to other formats.
The producers will respond by introducing new Digital Rights Management (DRM) media formats that contain encryption, making copying more difficult.
Consumers will be reluctant to throw out their perfectly serviceable media players. Uptake of the new formats will be slow.
Even if DRM players become entrenched, it won't stop the piracy that content producers have lost sleep over for decades. When playing DRM content, it is decrypted and can therefore be copied. File sharing networks will utilise encryption themselves and control of the network itself will be decentralised, making them very difficult to monitor and shut down.
It's about time that content producers realised that once the recorded media is with the public they have effectively lost control of it. They should acknowledge users will do what they like with the content they have bought, and stop trying to lobby governments to make criminals out of the general population.
Producers would be better off concentrating on making their money early on in the release cycle. The enjoyment of a live music performance or seeing a movie for the first time in a theatre can't be copied.
Providing easily obtained, inexpensive content with realistic restrictions later in the release cycle would do more to prevent piracy than convincing governments to increase copyright surveylance and penalties.
It would be ironic if the High Court watered down the new IR laws to the extent that Labor lost their perceived electoral advantage.
I suspect there are a some government backbenchers who'll be hoping the High Court challenge to the validity of the new IR laws will be at least partly successful, and some hopefuls in the Labor party who hope they won't.
You can't beat conservative commentators regarding greenhouse gas climate change. They're either debunking the whole thing as a myth, or pushing nuclear power as a solution to the non-existent problem.
There's no denying that the left has vigorously opposed nuclear power, at the same time drawing attention to climate change. It must be satisfying for conservatives to promote the left's nemesis as a solution to the left's climatic concerns.
So is nuclear power the solution to climate change? Not according to some.
AUSTRALIA could not develop a domestic nuclear power industry in time to stave off the effects of climate change and such a program would be prohibitively expensive, energy experts say.The cost of building the large number of nuclear power stations needed to even partly replace coal as a source of electricity would be so heavy no private investor would take on the risk without huge government subsidies, they said.
Scientists have warned the world needs to make large cuts in greenhouse gas emissions now to avoid further big changes to weather patterns.
But coal-fired power plants could not be replaced fast enough with nuclear plants to make any real difference, said the research principal at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, Chris Riedy.
A 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant would generate between 2 and 3 per cent of Australia's current electricity consumption, said Dr Iain McGill, research co-ordinator for the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets at the University of NSW.
"Coal generation is about 85 to 90 per cent of national electricity market generation, so it might require around 30 to 40 such plants to replace coal-fired generation," he said. "Such a program would almost certainly take numerous decades."
Dr Mark Diesendorf, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of NSW, said a 1000-megawatt nuclear plant would cost at least $3 billion to build - 2½ times that of a coal-fired power plant - and much more to operate than fossil fuel plants. To build a lot of nuclear plants, say, over 20 years, would emit so much greenhouse gas it would take 40 years to break even in terms of CO 2, he said.
Nuclear power is appealing to conservative elements because they see it as a way of constantly expanding the power supply without the climate change downside, while conveniently ignoring the cost and the problems of waste disposal and nuclear weapons proliferation. No need for wishy washy lefty sentiments like promoting alternative energy sources and increasing efficiency to make do with less.
Unfortunately for our conservative friends, there isn't a convenient 'drop in' solution to replace coal fired power stations. The transition to non polluting power will require a multi-stranded approach that utilises new technologies. Weaning ourselves off coal derived electricity will be expensive, but the money would be better spent on research, development and implementation of alternatives that can be on-sold in the future, rather than paying someone else to (perhaps) solve the problem for us.
Australia has an appalling record of backing wrong technologies and allowing promising research to be exploited by others. Climate change is an economic opportunity. Hopefully, we'll have the courage to exploit it.
