Ben Grubb over at It News has reported that Exetel is planning on banning P2P use (that is Bittorrent, Limewire, Kazaa (does that even exist still?), etc) during their off-peak period. I’m not surprised that John Linton, the founder and CEO of Exetel is considering such drastic measures, however I was concerned for my ability to download Linux ISOs at night. (Yes, all P2P is Linux ISOs — didn’t you know?)

At the beginning of this month, our off-peak time was trimmed from 12am-12pm to 2am-12pm. This was to stop a phenomenon that would basically kill the entire Exetel network at midnight. People just have to have that latest Linux ISO at 12:01am so start all of their downloads at the very start of off-peak. No worries, except people who wanted to browse web pages, use VOIP or do anything else suffered.

As John has mentioned many times over on his blog, most downloads would be finished by 12:30am or 1am and the network would be back to normal speeds. Despite years of trying to fix it, nothing worked.

This was a great cost to Exetel, who would continue to try different ways to combat this, including a P2P cache, asking for downloaders to be fair and push back their downloads and purchasing a ton of bandwidth they didn’t need except for that half hour. Seems this new tactic worked. So since most souls are in bed by 2am, they bit the bullet and moved off-peak back.

So what about the threat of banning all P2P during off-peak? Well this would only be after November, and only after they move back to a 12am-12pm off-peak period. And only if you choose that period over 1am-1pm or 2am-2pm. And it’s only banned during the first two hours. And it’s self-regulated.

A whole lot of ands really.

So I can have 60Gb of downloads over half of the month, and I either avoid P2P for two hours (which I was doing anyway voluntarily after a request another previous post from John) or move my off-peak to 2am-2pm, which since we are late risers would help us out anyway. Woah, I better get the tin foil hat out.

I still find Exetel to be extraordinary value. They usually have good service, and if it is bad they will be upfront and admit their issue. They aren’t for the faint hearted, as you have to know your stuff well and live with a support culture expecting you to find your own help in the forums, but if you can live with that you will get more from them than your regular ISP.

Free SMS from the web, they do email to fax and fax to email ($1 a month – wtf?), and more. I love them. I really do.

We interrupt your scheduled programming to bring a breaking news story.

This year I’ve decided to enter the 2009 Bridge to Brisbane. I’ll be walking 10km on August 31 30 (thanks, Natalie!) with a team of people to get some fresh air and exercise. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ve decided that to make it something extra special, I’m going to try and raise some money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My wife, Natalie, is a Type 1 diabetic and I see each and every day how this affects her. It’s the time it takes to monitor her sugar levels, the sugar lows and highs (both can be dangerous) and anything I can do to help raise funding to assist in the fight against this I will do. Almost anything. If you are serious and have enough cash, ask – you never know.

If you visit this fundraising page you not will be helping me, you’ll be helping my wife and others like her. So if any of my blog posts have ever spoken to you, or if you just want to help a good cause and feel warm and fuzzy for a moment, please give whatever you can.

I have decided to aim for Target 1000 – $1000.00 from you, me and others will help the foundation fund research into cures and treatments for this disease. I’ll be bringing you regular updates on my training progress between now and August 30, with regular reminders of the fundraising drive. I’ll also bring you how we are progressing towards Target 1000.

We now return to your regular programming.

I work for the Queensland Public Service. It isn’t something I would normally bring up on my blog — I don’t like to bring attention to career as a public servant. My views on this blog are mine and have very little to do with my job, other than everything in my life shaping my opinions.

That all changed when it was reported today in the Courier-Mail that Anna Bligh is looking to break another of her promises and cap public sector pay increases to 2.5%. It won’t affect many Queenslanders, but it affects me. I’m not all that pleased either.

Many of the fine folk who work in the Queensland public sector could be earning a lot more money working in the private sector. A big mix of skills and experience that these people have allows the public service to provide services to Queensland that no private company could. Many departments can’t be profit making – would you expect child safety officers to try and turn a profit? Can you imagine a business surviving long on that business model?

The government pays well and has good employment conditions, but there is a cost as well. Public sector staff work many long hours, and at upper levels with no overtime entitlements. Costs are kept to a minimum at every opportunity in order to provide front line services.

“But you get hours and hours of paid flex time?” I hear people scream. Flex time, or ADOs as they are often called, are hours that you have to work before you can take them off. So you might be required to work a 37.25 hour week, but you work 42 hours. That adds up and eventually you might be lucky to get a day off.

Then again, you might not. Many can’t take a day off as there would be no one else to do their job. Don’t think that flex time just accrues forever either. There is almost always a limit where you lose your hours if you don’t take them. And many workers either feel a duty to not take them or just can’t find the time/get the approval to do so.

This is just in the ‘regular’ public service where you aren’t dealing with front line services. Think about all the child safety officers, housing officers, nurses, teachers and police officers who work long hours for less than they could earn elsewhere.

There will always be those in any workforce who use and abuse systems and entitlements. But don’t let that fool you into thinking that the public sector isn’t full of lazy workers who do little more than drink from the golden goblet and head off at 3pm each day.

Giving workers 2.5% increases in pay each year is an insult. This is LESS than inflation. Add in the expected increases in fuel, electricity and other life essentials and it’s clear to see that it isn’t fair. It’s tough at the moment to keep good workers and this step is going to be another reason for those who are dedicated and stay for the betterment of the state or the clients they serve to pack up and get a better paying job in the private sector.

(Disclaimer: I am a Queensland public servant, but these are my views and not those of my employer, or of my pet llama.)

Girls who are attending private school dances are being required to wear bike pants, tights, leggings, etc with short skirts or dresses as part of a new dress code. The Courier-Mail’s headline cries “School Dance Dress Shock“. Clicking through gives you an even better headline for the article.

Bike pants dress code for school dances to ward off sex

I can only assume they are very unflattering bike pants then.

The article reports that this decision has been made amid concerns that inappropriate touching by boys will lead to criminal charges, and that this rule has been brought in to “ reduce the risk of being sexually assaulted”.  The report goes on to explain that the girl’s schools had asked for the rules to be changed, as previously this type of apparel wasn’t allowed. Perhaps this was a leftover of the late 80s push to consign leggings to the past forever.

It seems sensible to allow leggings, tights. This has become the fashion over recent times and it fits into the appropriate dress code for a school dance. Mini skirts and bare legs really don’t need to be the realm of 14 and 15 year old girls. This way they can wear the current short skirt/dress fashions but with appropriate covering that a private school requires. Win-win I would have thought.

The claims that this would reduce incidents of sexual assault seems strange. Sexual assault is not accidentally touching a girl inappropriately because there was nothing in the way, like bike pants. Sexual assault is the act of touching a person inappropriately (or other such things) and whether bike pants are in the way or not, it’s still assault. Perhaps the  idea is that the boys are not going to be ‘provoked’ by the bare flesh temptation brought about by the short skirts. I don’t think that would stop randy boys from thinking about sex, but randy boys doesn’t mean sexual assault either.

Adolescent boys and girls have always had the hideously difficult task of growing through from innocence to sexual maturity. It’s not always pleasant and can be very awkward. Having been a randy teenage boy at one stage, I know what it was like for me. I was never interested in sexually assaulting someone though.

If a guy is going to sexually assault a girl, it’s because he is a pig and can’t control himself (or chooses to not control himself). No amount of Lycra will stop them.

Good on the schools for having and updating their dress code, but lets not turn it into a panacea for sexual assault at school dances. Education and modelling of correct and appropriate behaviour from older men is one way that we can get the next generation to treat all women with respect and not do the wrong thing. Report anything that you see immediately. If you are attacked, don’t be afraid to speak up. We need to support the victims of sexual assault to help them get the justice they deserve.

A dress code – good idea, but not the end to sexual assault.

So now that I have your attention…

Cardinal George Pell has come out and made it a really Good Friday for Pope Benedict XVI (they need more papal names it seems) and supported his recent comments made to the media. Seems nothing so sinister and isn’t all that surprising, considering his position within the Catholic Church. Until you read into it more. Then you realise that it is disturbing and quite dangerous.

The Cardinal, who sadly I have to admit is an Australian, has come out in support of the Pope’s comments that the use of condoms was actually making the AIDS issue worse in Africa, and not better. Instantly I know that the scientists and politicians of the last 10 to 20 years are wrong and the Catholic Church are unbiased and trusted source of science on this issue. Please.

We should not be quick to judge. We should check whether this is what the Pope really said. Perhaps it is some misquote from a rouge journalist who picked up something he is supposed to have said from an unreliable source. No, it’s a Reuters journalist and it was uttered at a media conference.

Here is the part of the article, from http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/mar/19pope-views-on-condom-use-create-a-stir.htm:

“AIDS cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems,” he told media persons on March 17 while on his way to Cameroon.

They also reported that the Pope has a better solution for this AIDS epidemic:

According to the Pope, combating the spread of AIDS requires a ’spiritual and human awakening’, friendship for those who suffer, and a ‘responsible, moral attitude toward sex’.

Awesome. A very viable suggestion. We will stop people who are having sex knowing that they might get AIDS by giving them a spiritual awakening. They don’t need to know about AIDS and be told of all the possible ways to help stop its transmission. Just get them to pray that they won’t want to have sex anytime soon.

What needs to be done is that out of touch organisations, who are more concerned about their own pontificating than the wellbeing of its followers, should get a grip and come around to the 21st Century. It isn’t going to go away any time soon. There will be no apocalyptic horsemen, although global warming might make them think they are in Hell anyway.

Start providing the right sort of education to all people around the world about the dangers of AIDS. Be sensitive to their backgrounds and current education levels so that they can understand what they are being old. Provide good quality condoms only and provide them for free so that everyone has some. We shouldn’t be making money out of fighting an epidemic.

Edit: You can here his media stop in this AFP video on YouTube. It seems AFP won’t let you embed their videos, even if you are a paid affiliate. And I’m not even close to that.)