Darkness at Noon

If you’ve turned a computer on in the last few weeks, no doubt you will have come across some reference to the launch of Google’s web browser, Chrome. I’ve given the beta a go but am pretty wedded to Firefox, especially as, at least for now, I use a heap of extensions that I don’t know how I’d live without.

Frankly I’m a little nervous that it is increasingly difficult to operate without Google and that’s just more power than anyone should have. However I’m quite enthusiastic about the shift to web apps.

But my feeling is that all this is beside the point. What’s important here is the effect that Chrome will have on the internet itself and the fact that it is a web browser customised to run Javascript is a little bit exciting.

Essentially, by doing this Javascript will be able to take over from Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight. Why is this is a good thing? Because unless I’m mistaken, Javascript is opensource. I think we are going to see Javascript balloon in popularity and I can’t help but feel that will be a good thing.

In all seriousness, I’m rushing out to buy Javascript for Dummies.

Those of you who know me personally will probably know that I have a love affair with Jello Biafra, the former lead singer of the 80s punk band the Dead Kennedys. The DKs played a major role in my politicisation and I still love Jello to this day as he continues to remind me that I’m a radical and what that means.

So here’s JB on the Democrats in the States. I’m guilty of having a lot of hope in the change Obama could bring if he was elected. But I suspect it will largely be another Clinton administration. Over to you JB:

It occured to me that I shold probably mention what was included in our Senate Inquiry submission.

We made two key arguments.

Firstly, that the current disclosure and reporting regime is a mess and in need of a clean up. At the moment this problem is primarily that each state has different requirements which creates a lot of confusion. So we propose that a central regime and governing body be created. We hope that this will make reporting requirements for non-profit organisation a lot clearer and encourage giving by promoting confidence in the system and a confidence that a donation will be use appropriately. We also noted that it would be worthwhile creating a central online repository of non-profit annual reports for scrutiny by the general public.

Secondly, we argued that organisations with Deductible Gift Recipient Status should be able to use the money raised with this status for advocacy activities. We argued that the current limitation means non-profit organisations are not able to adequately represent the rights and opinions of their consumers, members and supporters. It is at the cost of a robust democracy that non-profits be limited in what advocacy they can do.

Well about 25 years ago that crazy hippy-nerd Richard Stallman started work on the GNU project.

An who better to say happy birthday than Steven Fry.

I’ve been using GNU/Linux (Ubunu) for about 2 years now and couldn’t be happier with it.

What started off as me saying ‘God damn it, I hate Bill Gates so much’ has very much become ‘God damn it, I love linux so much’.

Eric Lee and his baby, Labourstart, have always been great innovators when it comes to Union’s use of online technologies. And consistent with that is his new initiative: the Labourstart Techblog.

Labourstart is a large and complex site that translates into many languages. Often he runs into little glitches that he can’t figure out. Now, he just posts these little glitches on the blog and poepl comment to provide a little assistance.

The website gets fixed and the blog serves as an archive for other web developers who have run into the sam problem. Brilliant!

As I mentioned here, the ACDJ made a submission to the Inquiry into the Disclosure regimes for charities and not-for-profit organisations.

It’s now available from the Parliament of Australia website here. A list of all submission can be found here.

Well the only semi-decent paper in the country has decided to cut it’s staff by 30%. That’s 550 journalists and editorial staff who will no longer have a job. Needless to say this has two pretty significant problems.

Firstly, no one likes to see people loose jobs. Especially as unnessisarily as this.

Secondly, it’s going to make the quality of the paper decline further. Then where are people like myself going to turn for their news? The Oz?

So I urge you all to go to http://www.fairgofairfax.org.au/petition/ and sign the petition, then send a letter to the editor at letters@theage.com.au

On Friday the ACDJ put in a submission to the Inquiry into the Disclosure regimes for charities and not-for-profit organisations.

It hasn’t been published on the Parliament of Australia site yet as it needs to be checked by the committee before they do that so I’ll wait to post it here before I do.

But the inquiry has important implications for non-profit groups and community empowerment.

Two submissions that have already been put on the site I’m sure will be well worth the read are OurCommunity.com.au’s (disclaimer: they are my former employer) and The Australia Institute.