Apologies for this but I am about to get political

I don't claim to be a died in the wool Labour voter but at the moment I see nothing about our current Liberal government that I like or would want to be a part of.  I hate their attitude to asylum seekers and their belief that anyone on a social security service is a liar and a cheat, and that everyone that uses Medicare is scamming the system.  I am intensely negative about their assumption that everyone that is out of work is only there because they are lazy and they just need to get out of bed and start applying for jobs (which in many cases do not exist).  It seems that unless you are the owner of a multimillion dollar business, you have no right to complain about the way the government behaves.  But most of all I hate the way they have gutted the NBN and set it up for failure.  

The Labour party had a vision for us all to take part in the 21st century and improve our telecoms infrastructure to one that was upgradeable with simple endpoint changes. Now this stupid government has walked in with their negative view on everything that Labour had done and assumed that it was Labour, therefore it is too expensive and technically faulty. When in fact it was technically the cheapest and simplest solution with the greatest return on Investment.
Despite every technical person in Australia pointing out that the copper network is well overdue for scrapping and that fibre is the technically superior solution, this government has buried its head in the sand and bought the reviews they wanted (first rule of government, never commission a review without defining the outcomes first).
As for cost, long term the copper network will cost more in maintenance than would be spent on installing Fibre to the Premise (FTTP). Given how often power poles and street lights get knocked over, it doesn’t take much imagination to see Fibre to the Node (FTTN) terminal boxes becoming victims to driver stupidity.
I have likened the NBN to the Snowy River Scheme in its scope as it is a project that may cost a lot up front, but was always going to deliver much more than fast Internet. It delivers new ways of learning, working and consuming that are far outside the scope of current Internet services. Given that Australia is fast turning into a service economy, with no manufacturing to speak of, surely the means of communication is of vital importance in keeping us at the forefront of technology and knowledge.
In short, the NLP are a bunch of Luddite fucks who are happy to drop shit loads of money on military toys and expeditions but are short changing the people who elected them.  Because of their negative politics, they assume that simply destroying anything that Labour put in place before the election is guaranteed to be better, instead of examining each item on its merits and evaluating it from there.  Cost Benefit analysis is an important tool in business, and while it can be useful in government, it is important to remember that the government is there to provide the infrastructure to all Australians, not just the privileged few in Melbourne and Sydney's eastern suburbs.   Expecting Companies to provide infrastructure in areas that are marginal or cost prohibitive is ignoring the principles of capitalism (that supply will try to match demand)

For more reading below are some articles expanding on why we should have a single wholesale supplier for our Infrastructure
https://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/11/20/technology/why-fibre-premises-nbn-still-matters
About to be archived but still relevant
http://boombroadband.com.au/nbn-explained/
http://www.afr.com/p/national/speed_copper_and_telstra_nbn_policy_zrrudTYeuYkcd4UVAHKN3I
Great article on the ABC
A very technical article about upgrade costs for the FTTN network

Ku Klux Klan p0wnd by Anonymous

In case you didn't see it, the Ku Klux Klan were stirring up trouble in Ferguson (where the recent riots occurred ) by taunting people via their twitter account.  As the self appointed guardians of decency, Anonymous have taken over the KKKUS twitter account leaving the KKK voiceless :)

Couldn't happen to more deserving A*holes

Further reading at 

The Guardian

IT helpdesks

Being an IT person can sometimes be very stressful.  Not because computer systems go down, but because they are used by people, who tend to get annoyed when they break.  As I have said many times, my IT systems are perfect, it is usually the users that break them.  :) Without users my world would be great



As an "IT Guy" the most annoying problems for IT are the "It will only take a minute" type ones, as they end up consuming days of your time and without being logged in the helpdesk system, are impossible to track.  Whilst I appreciate that most people don't like logging calls because they feel that they are ignored, the problem is that IT, like every other part of the business, has to provide metrics on how they are going and where they are improving for management. Our means of doing this is through the Helpdesk.

 If we provide a means for you to log calls, take advantage of it and provide all the information you can to ensure that your fix is 1. permanent, 2. appropriate, 3. as speedy as possible.  

If we have to log the call for you, it will take longer for us to help you as we will drag our feet as a form of negative reinforcement.   If you log a call that says only "it's broken, fix it" we will ignore it (or at least bump it down the queue), the same as you would ignore a sales call from someone that wants your services for nothing. 

If you provide us with sufficient information to speedily look at the issue, we will attempt to fix it as soon as possible as this improves our metrics (and provides those "feel good" references ).

I appreciate that as an Information worker (or ship driver, or stockbroker, or fire fighter) your computer being broken is an inconvenience and can stop you working. However screaming at the IT guy to "Fix it now, because I can't get my ...." is not going to motivate us to go above and beyond to get you working again.  IT are doing our part for workplace harmony by encouraging polite requests.  Feel free to ring us if your issue is urgent (I need to get this report out in the next 10 minutes and the printer is not printing) but make sure you have logged the job first.  It gives us a reference point particularly if you have noted that you have an urgent report to print.  Please understand though, that if the reason you cannot print is because the server has had a catastrophic failure, we may be a little pre-occupied.

In short, IT is a service area and like all service areas, a little courtesy can go a long way to making our task more pleasant and in turn, make us want to assist you.   Being rude or nasty is just going to guarantee that we are going to use the only means at our disposal to get back at you, because, after all, we are people too. 

And for some humour

Things IT people would never say

Cheers

Hazmoid