Blogging, or web logging, is an activity carried out primarily by two groups of people. The first of these groups are sad, 13-year-old fans who live in their parent's basements, and commonly write things like: OMG!!, i totally hate my life, my parents are so mean because they wouldnt let me go out with jason tonite just because he is 3 years older then me, michelle is allowed to go out by herself its unfair. Friend me. LOL. The second group of bloggers are all Free Software advocates. The collective noun for these Free Software bloggers is a Planet; a confusing choice, as there is not a single planet of them located anywhere in the Universe.

Don't Panic
[In case you couldn't tell, I] Went to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tonight at the Swancon screening. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Todd is full of bollocks. I think the movie was fantastic and incredibly well done. It wasn't the book, but Douglas Adams never intended for it to be the book. It's its own piece of media, and should stand up on its own merits. After all, they're both just derivatives of the radio show. I think it's one of the best movies I've seen in a while.

Hack for the Dole
So if you're not an Australian, you don't know how our welfare system works. In Australia, you have to be doing something to claim unemployment benefits (oft referred to as: the Dole). This is realised in many middle class Australian's minds as the Work for the Dole scheme, where unemployed citizens can opt to do council-worker style labour (cleaning parks, building fences, etc. etc.) in exchange for welfare. However you can also get paid if you're actively seeking new work, doing community service work, or training to build up marketable skills. All in all, I think it's quite a fair system; preventing the Australian icon of the Dole Bludger.

Linux Australia (and others) have started a program called Community Code, or to put it incredibly bluntly, Hack for the Dole. The gist of it, as far as I can tell, is that your time spent developing open source software counts towards the amount of community services hours you have to put in to get paid your welfare grant. The point being that this software contributes to the community as well as giving you marketable skills and a portfolio. It's just so crazy, that is might just work! I love it!

There was some other crazy thing I was going to write about, but I really can't recall what it was. I'm sure it'll come back to me in a dream, and just as quickly, leave me in a second dream.