Today’s comic from XKCD explains why the world is f’ed up and the only people who know how to fix it are being ignored. (They’re the somewhat weird guys shouting about some random gibberish).

Just checking my email now and I see I got an invite to the LOTRO Beta.

(Looks like Paul did too… )

It’s amazing what drunk South Australians can do.

An Eyre Peninsula man is the talk of the town after catching a bronze whaler shark in his hands and wrestling it up onto a jetty.

Phillip Kerkhof from Louth Bay was at the local jetty when the 1.3-metre shark began chasing squid lures.

He says he climbed down a ladder and began to follow the shark in shallow water.

“I just snuck up behind him and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him,” he said.

“He’s just thrashing around in the water but then he was starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought ‘well, it’s amazing what vodka does’.”

The only damage from the dangerous species was a bite mark to his jeans.

“It’s not something I’d recommend to do. When I sobered up I thought about it and I said, ‘I’m a bit of an idiot doing it’,” Mr Kerkhof said.

A bit of an idiot? No, really?

US Senator, Ted Stevens - the same person who made the phrase “The Internet is a series of tubes” famous last year - is at it again.

From the Neowin article:

Early in January, Stevens introduced Senate bill 49, which among other things, would require that any school or library that gets federal Internet subsidies would have to block access to interactive Web sites, including social networking sites, and possibly blogs as well. It appears that the definition of those sites is so vague that it could include sites such as Wikipedia, according to commentators. It would certainly ban MySpace.

Look, here’s a free bit of advice for all concerned, but technologically handicapped, parents, law makers, and bystanders:

Stop Shifting Responsibility

Parents, Guardians, and (when at school) Teachers/School Staff have a responsibility to monitor their child’s behavior. If you’re not doing that - you’re just plain irresponsible and possibly negligent. 

Would you subscribe to a pay-TV service that had open-access pornography or other particularly violent content, and just let your child have free reign over the TV? No, of course not - you’d keep an eye (and ear) on what they’re watching.

Would you let your child wander off alone through the streets, without ensuring that they have some sort of supervision? Again, no - of course not.

Internet access is really no different. It’s just like a city street running right to your computer, with all the disturbing behavior just around the corner.

As your child matures, you make judgement calls as to giving them greater freedom and responsibility: They can stay up later, watch more mature movies, and go meet with friends without direct supervision. You set boundaries (”be home before 5pm”, and “No MA-rated movies”), and see how it works.

The same judgement calls need to be made about Internet usage. Having their own email account, and IM accounts is a gradual trust thing.

Dictating that Schools should ban certain types of sites, and expect that it’ll be a cure-all, is just pure self delusion.

— On a side note, gotta love this spelling suggestion.