Samuel Alexander Whyte

He was born around 3:00am, weighing 7 pounds and approx 50cm long

(Sorry about the vagueness of the stats but that’s all I was given)

Sam continues the tradition of an all-boy family joining his brothers Michael, Lachlan, William and cousins Seth, Callum, and Jack and cousin-in-law Toby.

We’ll be popping down to visit Rachel, Ged, Sam and the gang on the weekend.

Well done Rach & Ged….

When we filled in the paperwork to enrol our children in primary school there was a checkbox on the form to indicate your preference with regards to scripture class. Being atheists as we are we naturally ticked the option to have them not attend scripture.

At the intake interview a teacher checked through the paperwork with us and when they came to the scripture information quizzed us on the reason for our choice. I was somewhat offended by the question as it was my understanding that it is entirely our choice as to whether our children attend or not, I chose not to make a fuss and explained clearly that we are atheists and feel very strongly that scripture class is something we do not want our children exposed to. The teacher explained that she was only asking in case we were concerned about the denomination of the class, it was apparently a non-denominational class in case we were concerned.

This was a little over a year ago and in the intervening time we had made our wishes known verbally to the relevant members of staff, scripture class does not commence until the second year of primary school so we had put it on the mental back-burner.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when our eldest son’s class started scripture lessons… Can you guess what is coming???

Against our strict written and verbal instructions our son was indeed sent to scripture class.

As you may imagine we were not happy to say the least.

At this point it is probably worth explaining the reason for our objections.

We are not against religion per se (well I am but my wife is far more moderate than I), but rather our objections lie in the fact that scripture is taught within the school in a setting that to the children is indistinguishable from their normal secular studies.

In our minds this blurring of religious and secular instruction adds unwarranted weight to the religious material being taught.

Our nightmare scenario would be for the children to accept the religious material as fact in the same way that they would accept subjects like Maths or English.

On the way home from school that very day our fears were realised, our son when questioned about the scripture class told us that “God exists because school says it does”, we couldn’t have scripted it any better ourselves.

That night I drafted a letter to the principal outlining what had happen and how we feel about it, I spent an hour on it trying to make it as clear as possible while keeping it free of emotion, it was not easy I will tell you, I am probably the most even tempered person on the planet and I was really angry.

We had a meeting with the principal a few days later, seeing as the damage was already done I would have accepted a written apology. In the meeting we again explained how we felt about it all and that as far as we were concerned the damage was done but if we ever had a repeat of the incident we would certainly escalate it as far as we could.

It turns out that the list of non-scripture people was not given to the supervising teacher (who was a casual on that day, as was the teacher with the list) which brings me to the point of the post, what should the default position be for scripture?

The principal tells me only about 5% of children opt-out, my understanding was that statewide it is about 20% so I guess we are in our own little “bible belt”, so in the absence of other instructions our son was put in with the rest of the flock.

We talked about opt-in vs opt-out with the principal and he said that the general rule, due largely to apathy on the part of the parents is to opt-in. While this is a reasonable position given the 95/5 split it seems to me that not all choices are equal.

Imagine if the choice was whether to eat a peanut butter sandwich or not and 5% of the children were allergic to peanuts, or if the class in question were sex education (a hot button issue for some people, personally I’m disappointed that our school doesn’t offer it at all), or perhaps if a “Christian” child was made to attend a Muslim class….

The problem in this case is that religion is seen as completely safe so accidentally sending atheists’ children to scripture is “harmless” so there’s no need to make sure the substitute teacher has the list, I certainly don’t think it is harmless and I hope more people come to that realisation.

Thanks to the magic of salary sacrifice I’ve updated my late 2006 MacBook Pro to a shiny new 17″ Core i7 MacBook Pro.

The old machine has served me well these last three years but it has really started to show it’s age. Lately for work I have needed to spend more time working in a virtual machine, the 2GB of RAM and 140GB hard drive on the old machine were just not cutting it.

Specs for the new machine

• 2.66GHz Core i7
• 8GB RAM 1066MHz DDR3
• 17″ Anti-glare display (1920×1200)
• Intel HD Graphics 256MB DDR3 + GeForce GT330M 512MB DDR3
• 500GB 7200 RPM HDD

I haven’t had much time to play with it yet but it is certainly much snappier than the old one.

I ran GeekBench 32-bit on the new and old machines (the 64-bit version of GeekBench is paid only)

The GeekBench score shows a 58% increase in performance which will definitely make life easier for me.

On top of the obvious advantage of having a shiny new machine I will be passing the old MBP on to Viv so now I will actually be able to use my laptop at night when the kids are in bed

See below for the obligatory un-boxing photos, I apologise for the poor quality, my camera was out of juice so I took these with my iPhone 3G.

Had some fish and chips with Viv and the boys, now it’s playtime.

Posted via web from danieldrysdale’s posterous

After years sitting on the sideline watching what will probably be the last physical format war for video I have finally decide to get me some blu-ray.
 
My setup at home is best described as modest, consisting of speakers I bought about 15 years ago, a receiver I bought second hand from my a/v obsessed brother-in-law at least three receivers ago for him.
 
My TV is a 50″ panasonic plasma, alas only a 1366×768 panel, but a good performer.
 
I have a few devices already hooked up including an AppleTV that I use for “Channel BT” content, a TiVo and a BeyonWiz DP-S1 for over the air TV broadcasts.
 
Prior to this purchase I was using a cheap-ass Tevion DVD player from Aldi, the jaggies it added to my movies nearly made my eyes bleed.
 
I plugged the new guy in, I had to shut off the TiVo for the moment due to a lack of cables, the BeyonWiz is looking after me, and found that I needed to apply a firmware update, no great surprise.
 
At the moment I have no Blu-ray discs to try so all I’ve done is check out some DVDs and the in built YouTube access.
 
I spun up “The Two Towers” and was really impressed with the image quality, the player was upscaling to 1080p.
 
The player is badged as a region 4 DVD but just for fun I threw in my region 1 copy of “Apollo 13″ and bugger me, the disc played with no problems.
 
The image quality on “Apollo 13″ was not as good as “The Two Towers” there was a lot of grain but I think that it was always like that.
 
I tried out YouTube and although it works the UI was pretty craptacular. I can already watch YouTube content on my AppleTV and my iPhone so I can live without the feature on my Blu-ray player.
 
The player can also handle DivX, BUT, only via USB or off a disc. There is a fraking Ethernet jack on the back, would it have killed then to add an smb client?
 
My BeyonWiz and my AppleTV can handle DivX just fine so again I can happily live without this feature on the Blu-ray.
 
I look forward to sampling some Blu-ray content in the not too distant future.
 
Hint: it’s my birthday next month
 
I’ll post again later when I’ve partaken of some Blu-ray goodness.

Posted via email from danieldrysdale’s posterous

Posted via web from danieldrysdale’s posterous

I was impressed with the story, it was well written, backed by science and about as unbiased as  commercial networks get on a prime time current affairs style program. ( 60 Minutes, I’m staring at you buddy. )

I started seeing promos for last nights program that made me worry, it felt like they might be going to focus on “The Other Side” of the debate. It was with quite some trepidation that I sat down last night to watch the followup.

I was all ready to hurl a heavy object through my TV….

Fortunately for me and my TV this didn’t happen. What I saw last night was clearly an attempt to provide a forum for the anti-vacc movement to have their say while still keeping things firmly based in reality.

The panel featured Prof. Peter McIntyre from NCIRS ( The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance ) and Dr Giselle Cook (apparently the only doctor they could find that was anti-vaccination and willing to appear on the show).

The started with a recap of the previous weeks’ story and then allowed questions from the audience.

The most vocal audience member was, as I expected, Meryl Dorey of AVN (Australian Vaccination Network). The AVN claim to be all about “Empowering the people to make informed choices”.

Their website looks professional (if you ignore the numerous typos) but seems to be largely concerned with attacking the traditional medical establishment and spruking “Alternative Medicine”. There were plenty of things you could buy from them and an easy way to donate to the cause, but I couldn’t see any links to peer reviewed articles or studies.

To me the AVN seems to be all about muddying the issue, spreading doubt and making a tidy profit on the side.

I was very pleased to see that Prof McIntyre was easily able to refute Meryl’s claims and that Mike Munroe stepped in to rebut her as well.

When asked about her professional qualifications Meryl Doyle stated that she has been researching the issue for 20 years and has a brain.

When asked why she provided no evidence for her claims she stated she sent many studies and the names of vaccination victims to the Seven network. Mike Munroe denied that they recieved her evidence and stated that the victims she named refused to speak with them…

Please check out this link to a post on “The Skeptics’ Book of Pooh Pooh”, the poster was actually at the debate and has a lot to say about it…

Here is a link to a post from the father of Dana McCaffery that everyone should read…

The debate ended up with the anti-vacc movement calling for “More information” so that parents can make an informed decision….

This tactic, we need more information, crops up in many areas as a means to create doubt in the minds of the audience. The fact is that vaccines have been studied, tested and retested for as long as they have been around. The risk factors are well known and understood, the information about the risks is readily available.

The problem is that not that there is too little information for parents but rather that there is too much information to wade through.

As a parent myself I can attest to the fact that it is easy to become confused and overwhealmed with all the information that you are bombarded with by friends, relatives, healthcare professionals etc

Unfortunately many parents choose not to read what they are given, they don’t ask enough questions of the healthcare professionals looking after them and their children.

In todays modern, frantic, ADHD ridden, push responsibility onto others culture we want to be spoon feed everything and make sure there is someone to blame when it all goes pear-shaped.

Taking the time to read the information ( Click here for the comprehensive Australian Government immunisation guide ) is probably the most important thing that a parent can do. It might be a pain and require some commitment but to put it bluntly it is part of your job as a parent to make informed decisions based on the most accurate information you can get access to.

If we can put the emotional outbursts aside (which I admit I have a lot of trouble doing) and approach this issue with logic and reason backed up with a through thorough education then it will be clear what the right choice is…

Roll forward nearly thirty years to the current day, how well educated and “clever” are we now??

The “Internets” are abuzz these days with debate over the “Vaccination Issue”, on one side we have well known celebrities like Jim Carrey and his wife Jenny McCarthy spewing torrents of pseudo science, lies and downright non-sense and on the other the medical and scientific communities desperately trying to counter them with logic and reason.

Personally, I place as much credence on the opinions of celebrities as I do on those of random people on the street, the trouble is that there are a lot of people unable to separate the celebrity from the status.

Outside of North America we tend to look on the “antics” of “The Yanks” as amusing and fun to comment on but largely unimportant. Unfortunately in the case of the “Anti-vacc” movement, here in Australia it is becoming all too real.

I read an interesting blog post (via Twitter) from Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website. I was disturbed to hear that we had any serious “Anti-vacc” movement in this country.

One thing Phil and I have in common is that we both get worked up over “woo woo”, pseudo-science and quackery.

A post here at “Skeptic Zoners” talks about the Australian “Anti-vacc” movement.

All hope is not lost, according to figures from the “National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance“, immunisation rates in Australia are around 90%, we cannot afford to be complacent though.

There is a link from Phil’s blog to a story about an episode of “Sunday Night” on the Seven Network that screened last night and covered the vaccination, including the tragic death of Dana McCaffery aged 1 month, in a way that was positive and well researched.

On the topic of Vaccination I feel very strongly that it is our duty as citizens to maintain the currency of our vaccinations for the good of the whole country. Vaccination is not only beneficial to the one that is vaccinated but the “Herd Immunity” that comes from the majority being vaccinated helps those who are unable (or unwilling) to be vaccinated themselves.

Speaking as a parent I have put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, with both my children. In fact my youngest, Callum, is part of a whooping cough vaccine trial run by the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, the trial was to see if vaccination from birth can be effective.

( a link to an article discussing this study can be found here )

As a result of this study, we believe, Callum becomes very distressed whenever we take him to see a Doctor.

We’re sure he will grow out of this but given the opportunity again we would definitely enroll him in the study.

So far it seems that the study is pointing to whooping cough ( and possibly other vaccines ) being very effective even from birth and if the whooping cough vaccination starts to be routinely given at birth then tragedies like the one that befell Dana McCaffery and her family can be entirely prevented.

As you probably known my employer IceTV have been fighting for 3 years now against the Nine network in a totally bogus attempt to misuse copyright law as a weapon against a company they saw as a threat.

We won the first round in August 2007 after an 8 month wait for the judgement.

Nine appealed to the Full Court of the Federal Court in February 2008 and won, overturning the earlier ruling in a verdict delivered in May 2008.

We sought and were immediately given special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia, we presented our case in October 2008.

At 10:15am this morning the High Court delivered their verdict overturning Nine’s appeal and reinstating the original verdict, we have also been awarded costs for the three court cases.

As you can imagine this comes as a massive relief.

After three years living under a cloud we are finally emerging into the sunlight.

2009 is set to be a great year for IceTV and we are all excited about the possibilities ahead of us…

Watch this space

Here are some links to the many articles about the verdict….

IceTV wins High Court decision – freezes Nine!

The High Court Full Ruling – Interesting reading!!

News.com.au

PC Authority

The Age

IT Wire

Lifehacker

Smarthouse

ZD Net

If you’re not asleep by now then more power to you…

Technorati Tags: icetv copyright nine epg pvr

The crack did not affect the operation of the phone but it was sure bugging me every time I looked at it.

I looked around on the net and found that the white 3G iPhones were showing cracks like mine either at the dock connector or headphone socket so I thought, hey I’ll take it to the Genius Bar at the local Apple Store (Chatswood) and see if they can help me.

I made an appointment and turned up on time earlier today. The “Genius” asked me a few questions and gave the phone a good look over, presumably looking for signs of rough handling. He then told me he will replace it for me at no cost.

I was once again blown away with the slick, professional an painless nature of the service…

I had a similar experience a few months back when I took my 17″ MBP in for a battery replacement.

Service matters every bit as much as product quality and if I have to pay a premium to be treated like a valuable customer then I’ll do it..