The book was in my big backpack of travel-ready goods including new glasses and contact lenses and new camera and so forth, which was stolen from my locked and occupied shared office at the University of Technology, Sydney. I normally don't carry much of value, but I probably had more than $800 worth of stuff with the new glasses adn contact lenses. UTS insurance doesn't cover thefts of employee property from their offices.

I booked around the world tickets, because they were cheaper than direct flights from Australia to anywhere. The airline could save money by placing me in empty seats from Australia to the USA to Europe to Asia and back to Australia. So I spent less money. I built up more mileage, I earned more frequent flyer points. And no flight was over 12 hours, so I got to rest between stops, instead of a mad 27 hour dash.

There are two main frequent flyer systems in the world. I chose the Star Alliance. In 2000 this meant I got a free upgrade to First class on the flight from Canada to Britain. This was unfortunate, because Ansett were the only Star Alliance presence in Australia. Ansett was bankrupted and stopped trading after I accumulated many many points from several years of around the world trips to Canada. No other Star Alliance airline took their place.

The Star Alliance, through Air Canada, remembered my frequent flyer points, but they had no way for me to redeem the from Australia. Only flights within Canada were available. Last year they emailed me that if I didn't make a transaction on my account, I'd lose all my points. So I surfed their website and ordered a very sweet geeky 10 megapixel Pentax Optio M60, and had it delievered to a Canadian friend who shipped it to Australia for me. 9 years later I had a new camera, care of my frequent flyer points.

I had booked the tickets with my credit card, which accumulated mere reward points. This year I cashed out my credit card reward points for a return flight to Melbourne for a convention.

Naturally I've registered the flight with the Qantas frequent flyer program for free by getting a Woolworths Rewards card. Now I just need funds for a few more trips around the world, and I can get back to getting upgraded to better and better treatment by airlines. Just like "Up in the Air [Blu-ray]".

Dr Rachie is a member of the Australian Skeptics and a regular contributor to the SkepticZone podcast.

friendly faces in the mosh pit

So that's what mosh pits are for.

A spectacular view from Fleur's in Blues Point Tower.

I avoided stepping on the blood on the floor and almost sat in the blood on the seat. I never found out if this was the aftermath of an accident or an assault.

I walked into a cityrail carriage to a scene of mysterious tragedy.

Censorship violates the basic human right to freedom of speech, which includes a wider freedom of information. The fascists who will be enpowered to read things that they can stop us reading, and say things that they can stop us saying, will have powers that have only been used and desired by despots in human history.

There is no evidence provided by the government that any of the huge list of media they want to ban are causing harm to any children at any time. There is no evidence that if they could prove that an open internet gave children some kind of distress, that the laws would in any way prevent this unproved distress.

Why did the government give special private acccess to the Australian Christian Lobby for consultation on the drafting of the censorship laws, but not spend ANY time with child psychologists?

The government wouldn't dare openly censor TV in the same way. And yet TV and the internet have started converging as many people now stream content from the free-to-air networks straight to their televisions, with suggestions that all TV content will be delivered by internet in very few years.

So the laws are being pushed for a fake solution to a fake problem. Mr Rudd, what is your real reason, or is the answer restricted?

Western Liberal Democracies around the world protect freedom of speech, but many have made an exception and enpowered the government to censor child pornography, depending on the age of consent in their country. Only in Australia so far has that one exception to freedom of speech been abused to extend to a general power to censor anything and everything. This abuse of power is the first argument I've seen to revoke the ban on child pornography. If making an exception to free speech leads to the denial of free speech, then we can only protect our rights by denying any ban whatsoever. The government has abused our trust, we can't allow them to continue with these authoritarian powers.

Rocketcar Day 11. Slow Motion Montage from sixty40 on Vimeo.

I recreated the paddle-pop stick and rubber band flick-knife I learned to make in primary school, for the HowToon workshop at the Live Futures Festival 2009.



Ingenious, no? I was bullied constantly but I never used my flick-knife on anyone.