John Howard today announced that the Federal election will be held on November 24, 2007. The electoral role closes on Wednesday, so for those hundreds of thousands of Australians who aren’t enrolled, or are enrolled incorrectly, update your details now.

When making the announcement Mr Howard said that “… this country does not need new leadership; it does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership.” He also said, that “… love me or loathe me, the Australian people know where I stand on all the major issues of importance to their future.”

What are the major issues that you are thinking about in the lead up to the election? What will influence your vote? Labor governments across the country, the War in Iraq, the environment, Aboriginal affairs, Work Choices?

Links to more electoral goodness: google.com.au/election2007/ and abc.net.au/news/tag/federal-election-2007/

The real news is the ratings though. Channel Seven achieved the top five rating programs for Tuesday night. Home and Away (1,409,000), Today Tonight (1,385,000), Seven News (1,367,000) and All Saints (1,306,000), and of course Dancing with the Stars. For a two hour program, DWTS is a huge winner for Channel Seven compared to, for example, half an hour of Kath and Kim.

I was a bit disappointed with the ratings for Heroes on Thursday however (1,223,000) but for 9:30pm I’m sure that’s reasonable. I’m totally a fan of Heroes!

Also while I’m on the topic of television, I’m actually thinking about getting a HD digital set-top box so I can watch the new HD channels by Ten and Seven which are to be launched before the end of the year. From what I’ve read, Seven’s schedule seems to be a bit of a rush job, but Channel Ten’s offering looks quite good.

Side Note: if you like Channel Seven you can subscribe to their Jaiku feed for updates. Jaiku is one of Google’s latest purchases and is now only available to current subscribers. If you’d like to join Jaiku post a comment below (I’m going to be mean and only offer these to people living in Oz – so prove it!).

Originally I wasn’t all that amazed by my Mac. I noticed that it was a much better looking laptop than ‘the others’ and that there were a few differences in the way it works (packages, encryption, installations, diskimages).

However, something I noticed straight away was the amazing online community of users. I type questions into Google all the time about how to do different things on Tiger, and I always find people who have the answer. From – “How do I clean the screen?” to “How do I change icons for files?”.

The Apple website offers some great support and tutorials, but there are so many other websites and forums which give advice. I also found that there is so many great free applications. I use Adium as my IM client, Cyberduck for FTP and Flicker Uploader for … (well that one is self explanatory). It is really great to feel part of something different.

Now when I’m at uni without my MacBook, I seek out the Macs on campus, and my next computer or laptop purchase will also be a Mac.

I am very interested what other people think about this… What is the purpose of this? Do you agree with it?

The Toowoomba Chronicle also allows readers to SMS in Letters to the Editor. Which is fine in theory, however the editor doesn’t edit any of the text messages. The letter therefore goes to print like this:

“Good.Friday. The.Day Jesus Christ Died.4 Us…Living near the park hearing loud thumping music from the so-called Gospel Festival on a day that should one of reverent, respeSctful and quiet remebrance. Really disgusts me.” – Doylo brother,phillip street

Or like this:

“I live in bridge st near holberton st and I can hear so called music from agmf this far away from queens park what must people who live nearer park have to suffer for 3 days come on tcc and others time to move it” – no author submitted

Obviously I can understand what these people are trying to say but couldn’t the editor add some punctuation and fix a few errors (newspaper readers are not the most technology savvy people) before this rubbish gets put in the paper.

Related Links:

• ourToowoomba.com

tag: toowoomba, Toowoomba Chronicle, newspaper

Forget the evangelical, religious, self help crap and go directly to this site – this guy gets it… Life does really suck, it’s just the way it is.

God is a fucking bastard…

images.centophobia.com

So here it is: Centophobia’s guide to Centophobia.

Centophobia is the fear of new ideas. It is related to neophobia (also called cainotophobia) which is the fear of new things or experiences. Technically, neophobia is defined as: the persistent and abnormal fear of anything new and can also be present in a milder form as the unwillingness to try new things or break from routine.

While I can’t find a specific definition of centophobia on the web, I would define it as: the reluctance to consider new ideas, or the ideas of others, or to break from pre-established thoughts and ideologies.

Perspectives from Robert Anton Wilson and Thomas Kuhns:

Neophobia is the reason why human culture and ideas do not advance as quickly as our technology.

New ideas, however clear and well-proven, cannot be implemented until those we consider them ‘new’ die and are replaced by new generations who consider the ideas old and accepted.

A study, found that lab rats were cautious of a new item (a trap) which was placed in their cage but were less fearful of the object compared to wild rats. Lab rats were therefore proven to be less suspicious or fearful of new objects. This experiment suggests that neophobia may in fact be essential to life in the wild for many animals. Thus neophobic behaviour in humans may be an inherent trait but perhaps a trait no longer essential to survival in modern life.

Phobia in General:

All phobias are unreasonable sorts of fear that can cause avoidance and panic. Phobias can be treated with cognitive behavioural therapy using exposure and fear reduction techniques. In many cases, anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medication proves helpful, especially during the early stages of therapy.

The reason I called this blog centophobia was to try to overcome centophobia in myself and others; to embrace and discuss new ideas, so that the rest of the world don’t have to wait until we die to move on. This is not a medical site on centophobia or neophobia, simply an avenue to discuss new and interesting ideas.

(Please, don’t ask me why I didn’t call it neophilia: the love of new things. Maybe I was feeling negative the day I created the blog, rather than choosing to see the positive side. I apologise for this.)

Related Terms:

Related to centophobia is technophobia; the fear of new technology.

Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophile is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty. Neophilia is particularly prevalent in internet culture and other leading-edge subcultures.