Latest Story
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Building Resilient Cities
Scott Ludlam | March 11, 2009Somewhere within the featureless expanse of brick and tile sprawl relentlessly consuming the Swan coastal plain, someone has taken the time to build a sustainable home.
"The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet" ~ William Gibson
Take a drive an hour south through the rapidly expanding growth corridor fusing Perth to Mandurah, and you’ll fly past a road sign at once hopeful and heartbreaking.
‘Sustainable Mandurah Home’ it points cheerfully. Somewhere within the featureless expanse of brick and tile sprawl relentlessly consuming the Swan coastal plain, someone has taken the time to build a sustainable home.
I have no issue with the house itself; it’s an intelligent blend of the state of the art and the bleeding obvious, it didn’t cost a fortune to build and it gives visitors a sense that energy and water-efficient homes are comfortable, practical and inexpensive to live in.
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Where are the Exciting Careers in IT?
David.Talamelli | March 10, 2009If you think recruitment is the problem, then it may be time to re-evaluate how you're interacting with recruiters.
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Women’s Day, blink and you miss it
sally.rose | March 9, 2009If you think International Women's Day is an irrelevance, then you probably have the most cause for celebration.
International Women's Day seems to have lost its nerve. It was Sunday, but you might have missed it.
This year I didn't see a single woman out and about donning the green and purple and spied only the most cursory mention of it in the weekend papers, as an aside in a report of an alleged sexual assault; hardly inspiring stuff.
Perhaps it is because younger women no longer feel the day is relevant to them or maybe it has just slipped so far off the radar of social consciousness that they aren't even aware of the day's significance.
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Should uninsured bushfire victims receive donated or government money to rebuild their homes?
MikeM | March 5, 2009Is it fair for government or donated money to rebuild uninsured homes, given that it leaves little incentive for homeowners to insure their homes in future?
Close to 2000 homes have been destroyed by the Victorian bushfires, and fires are still burning. It is suspected that while many of these homes were insured against fire, a large minority were not. Is it fair for government or donated money to rebuild uninsured homes, given that it leaves little incentive for homeowners to insure their homes in future? And when it comes to that, why is property insurance in Victoria so darned expensive anyway?
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How old is old enough to … get pocket money ?
Catherine Fritz-Kalish | March 5, 2009Does getting pocket money teach children the value of money and from what age can this lesson be taught with confidence that the message is getting through?
My 6 year old son has a tuck shop at his school and now and then he asks me for money to buy a treat at lunch time. Once in a while I oblige. On the days that I don’t think it is necessary, he tells me that his friends all get pocket money and that they don’t have to ask their parents for money to buy things at the tuck shop, they just use their pocket money when they want for what they want.
So, how old is old enough to get pocket money?
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What is privacy really all about?
StephenWilson | March 4, 2009You can expect national security advisers to have some disdain for privacy, but they cannot simply re-define it.
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Open Source and SMEs
Leo Silver | March 3, 2009A few years ago you did have to be a techy to run on Open Source, now it's relatively easy. SMEs should make the most of it.
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When it comes to online safety – it’s not just kids who need education
Julie Inman Grant | March 3, 2009There is a clear need for a program to help educate parents, teachers and carers on how to help children stay safe online.
My last Open Forum blog was on the subject of cyberbullying and some of the surprising findings about the extent of the problem in Australia. A Microsoft-sponsored survey, performed by Galaxy Research, found that even though a quarter of children surveyed reported they had been cyberbullied, a startling 83% of parents did not know what to do in response to the problem.
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Poetic Justice and a Child’s World
foggy | March 2, 2009Poetry and storybooks give the imagination space to roam in a way computers never will, for adults & children alike.
The imagery in a poem especially, of flowers, stimulates the faculty of an adult’s imagination much like the reading of a bedtime story does a child’s. Below is an excerpt from one of my favourites: lines 78-93, Acon and Rhodope; or Inconstancy, by Walter Savage Landor:
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Postcard from Argentina
Katie.Silver | March 2, 2009Combining work and play is a shortcut to getting under the skin of another culture.
When I arrived in Argentina to begin my AFS community service exchange, after only three weeks of Spanish classes, I even couldn’t even spell much less pronounce the name of my host family or hometown.
Oh dear!
But nobody held it against me and living with the Nachtriebs of Gualeguaychu has been nothing short of delightful.
Living with a family, studying and volunteering has meant that rather than just being a tourist, I’ve developed real relationships within the community.
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Intelligent Protection
Robert.Pregnell | March 2, 2009Only strong combination of artificial and human intelligence will protect you from the threats you can see, as well as those you can't.
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Childish consumerism
alison gordon | March 1, 2009As role models, guardians and parents, we can surely do more to stop our kids falling prey to savvy and toxic marketing campaigns.
Do you have a "tween" in your house, or are about to have one? Perhaps you’re now grateful you have a couple of teenagers, or even young adults still living at home. Maybe you’re even relieved to have only boys in the house!
We’ve all been affected by the downside of consumerism, but if you thought you’re precious little ones were safe, particularly your girls, rest assured this "market" has been well and truly discovered. You might be one of the many believers that it’s much easier to raise boys than girls, and regardless of whether this is true, we can probably all agree there are lots to raise an eyebrow at in 2009.
