いじめ

　最近、日本の学校ではいじめということが問題になってきました。まず、「いじめ」というのは何ですか。いじめの意味は「弱いものを苦(くる)しめること」ということです。いじめは日本の学校で1970年代に校内暴力から起きました。1980年代に少しずつ減ってきたけれど、1990年代にまたしっかり深刻な問題に発展しまいました。そして、いじめと関する教育問題「登校拒否」もあります。そして、1980年から1000人以上いじめられた子どもは自殺しまいました。また、世界中にいじめ問題があります。しかし、いじめはどうして日本で一般的なことになってきているのでしょうか。

　1996年には「いじめ問題国際シンポジウム」が開かれました。シンポジウムの前に日本でいじめについて、一万人の学生に調査が行われました。その調査によると、いじめのケースは70％以上も「いじめをする学生はいじめられる学生の友達やクラスメート」のことがあります。ジェイ・ブリッジ（③） によると、そのことの理由は、日本で高校進学率が90％を超えたし、競争が大変し、「子供たちのフラストレーションが暴力に変わるのは当然」からです。

　そして、いじめられた子どもは教師にいじめのことを言わないそうです。シンポジウムの調査によると、子供たちは「先生は何もできないから」と思って教師と相談しません。また、教師と相談したら、いじめはもっと苦しくなります。教師たちは何かできるなら、その態度がなくなるはずだと思います。

　私はその色々なこと以外に、いじめの問題は国民性に関係があると思っています。どこでも、子供たちは大人から社会に生きる方法を習います。そこで、その方法の中に「いじめ」ということがないと思いますが、日本の場合、国民性にいじめが発展できることがあるかも知りません。つまり、いじめ問題は国民性から起きただろうというわけです。原因は二つあると思います。

　ひとつめ、日本人は上下関係を大切にしているが、その上下に問題が生まれているそうです。たとえば、先輩後輩の関係でいじめは簡単にできるでしょう。その現象は自動的続けています。理由は、いじめられた子どもは先輩になると、「私の順番ではないでしょか」と思っているからです。また、その上下問題は教育だけ問題ではなくて、社会問題というわけでしょう。そこで、その考え方が続ければ、いじめを止めるわけにはいけません。「上下関係を落とす」というわけではないですが、もっと気をつけて関係の価値にとって、上の方も下の方も、尊敬した方がいいと思います。

　ふたつめ、日本の国民性の一番強いのは集団主義的です。いじめっ子は大体何か違いがある子供です（④）。集団主義的な社会に、自信は回りの人からもらいますので、友達やクラスメートがいじめされば、自信を持った方がないでしょう。その理由をとって、「希望がない」と思って、13歳や14歳いじめられた子供たちは自殺してしまいます。個人主義的な社会だったら、自分で自信を持って、戦う気をとっていきます。本当に悔しい違いではないでしょうか。

　もちろん、いじめは日本だけの社会問題わけではありません。国々によっていじめ率は違いますが、必ずいじめがあるそうです。そして、1993年から日本政府もいじめ問題を抱えてきています。しかし、いじめはまだ深刻な問題で、登校拒否から「ひきこもり」ということが起きています。その色々な社会問題に対しなければなりません、未来の子供たちのために。

作文：1380字                                                                                   カラン・ジュネジャ

参考文献

本

①．Hatasa, Yukiko et al       (2000)              「なかま２」Houghton Mifflin Company               ｐｐ463　～　465

②．尾木直樹            （1996）                    「いじめっ子：その分新と克服法」

③．小山悟                （2003）                    「ジェイ・ブリッジ」        凡人社

論文

④．杉森しんきち    （1998）        「Bulling in Japanese Schools: Cultural and Social Psychological Perspectives」

ウェブサイト

⑤.「いじめ」　http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/いじめ　　2005年10月21日

Amorality of Web 2.0

Nick Carr: The Amorality of Web 2.0  – This article address some of the especially overhyped points of Web 2.0 – that essentially it is “the saviour” of computing. While I’ve only come across a little of this kinda hype, certainly some of the words that are quoted there are quite scarily… intense. I would say that Carr’s mention of the “cult of amateur” is spot on, but there is something of a contradiction, a little hypocritical in saying so on a blog.

In many ways, saying “Web 2.0” encompasses a lot of things, and that is what has me jaded about it. Something about the version number, attached and incremented retrospectively, suggests a fixed point at which everything switches from 1.0 to 2.0, or at least that 2.0 is a massive change. The reality of the web – and pretty much everything in life – is that change is constant and almost imperceptible. Marketing hype has its place, but the cynic in me sees many hitching their wagon the roaring train of “Web 2.0”, even if it’s less about the IPOs and VCs of the late 90s dot-com bubble. And Om Malik, in reaction to Carr’s post, points out (a little hesitantly, I’d say) that we as the web majority appear to be donating our time to companies that aren’t really giving us back. There’s the question of what really is and isn’t being paid for somewhere in there, and what is being gained from the millions of bytes of text spilled forth daily around the world. Does it, indeed, add anything to the value of human existance? (Read an LJ and I think you’ll despair)

Also, just relating to the “cult of amateur” mentioned before There was an article that I wanted to link to relating to the slow rot of professional journalism in favour of the amateur, simply because blogs are so easy, so focused on opinion and so quick. In contrast, pro journalism often is constrained by a variety of limits. So why stick with the pros? The article pointed out that pros often actually know what they’re doing, and importantly have money and resources (time, people, networks, established positions in law) to investigate stories fully. Bloggers and other amateur reporters such as those involved in WikiNews don’t actually go to quite the same extent, and are usually based on a very personal view. Could Watergate have happened via blogs? I think we might see something like it, but it won’t hit nearly as hard as Watergate did through the two reporters did then. Because invariably, if you’re blogging trade secrets, you’re going to get dooced pretty damn quick.

 Basically the net and blogs (in no real way related to the topic at hand, web 2.0), is all about opinion of hacks and people who think they matter. Kinda like this minil lit-review.

 Hmm, gonna have to work on these conclusions to give them a positive spin.

Video iPod

Every man and his internet-enabled pooch probably knows that over the last year or two, Big Apple Event equals New iPod. And the speculation kept mounting each time that this would be the one, the killer, the Video iPod that would surpass all comers, and at the last one, dropped in almost casually with a “One more thing…” title, they finally Did It and unleashed the next generation of iPod… without actually calling it that, or putting ‘video’ in the name at all.

So if this is finally It, why so underwhelming? … was the first thought to flit through my head. It’s no revolution, that’s for sure – evolution is the only way to put it. The iPod Photo has had its screen stretched, thinned down a bit and given a black twin brother. Oh and the uber click wheel has been shrunk… just a tad. What this doesn’t shout to me is “different.” It’s like the new Porsche models – the designers went to the minimal effort to adjust it to the newest components and requirements, and then sat back and said, “yeah that should do it.” While yes, very cool that it can do video, it is limited in its capabilities, and the standard video offering from Apple is a measly 320×240 – resolutions not seen since the days when VCDs were considered inadequate.

I’m sure they’ll improve the iPod in years to come, and Apple will continue to dominate the MP3 player market with their brilliant pricing and product positioning – they’ve got the market covered from top to bottom, really, and the Shuffle is the only weak one in the line-up to me, since it really could do with a tiny little LCD just to display trackname and let you fiddle. But it feels to me like Apple could have done Video ages ago, but thought it didn’t make enough sense. Maybe the economics of the thing have changed, and certainly with the Nano they’ve hit a very sweet spot to keep profits churning. Making the iPod thinner will always improve it, and while the other dimensions are probably as big as they could be while staying comfortable, some of the photoshopped fakes with LCD screens rotated 90 degrees looked far more… well, pleasing to the eye.

New iPod, all well and good Stevie J, but next time, make it something significant, not a half arsed hack job? (and what the hell was it with iTunes jumping a whole version number? Version control this ain’t.)

Copyright in the Digital Era

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, referred to as the DMCA, is a law of the USA regarding copyright in the new era of digital content. The act was designed to implement the 1996 Copyright Treaty from the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The intent of the WIPO Copyright Treaty is to extend the Berne Convention of 1886, the first international recognition of copyrights. The WIPO Treaty enables protection for computer programs as literary works, recognising their inherent intellectual property value, among other similar provisions that are relevant to the digital content era. [1]

Most controversially, however, the Treaty and thus the DMCA contain provisions prohibiting the circumvention of security measures designed to protect such content. This has been the subject of a number of litigation cases in America, and indeed, the implications of the DMCA are being felt outside of the USA, rendering it a very controversial law, both internationally and domestically.

Bali, strike 2

Now normally I tend to avoid speaking about these things because there’s always an oversupply of opinion and a lack of true understanding, and I don’t even begin to pretend to understand exactly what went on in Bali on October 1. Suffice to say, three people blew themselves up, taking 27 with them and scarring 140 something others. Victims were from all over the world, all ages. Basically, indiscriminate killing.

The biggest question I want to ask is that what has all the words that flowed from Bali the first time, the anti-terror laws, the increased funding for intelligence agencies, the overall hightened state of people’s attention to terrorism, everything – all the excuses that involvement in Iraq didn’t do anything to make us as Australians a ‘bigger target’, that the ‘war on terror’ is actually having an effect. Because it seems to be exactly the opposite. I know terrorist incidents happened before 2001, and with probably as much frequency as they happened before, and now it’s just a case of us being more aware of it. But it seems that with Bush, Blair and Our Bastardness Howard making such an issue of it that it’s only been since then it’s been a huge evil. And isn’t that something the terrorists feed on? They’re like attention seekers with things that go boom and they don’t just want Daddy’s attention. If someone wants to call this World War III, they’d be warranted – it is affective everyone around the world.

It’s ironic this comes in the same week as the IRA disarmament in Ireland. For years, the IRA were the bad guys – fighting on ideological, religious and occupation issues in Northern Ireland. It was later in their fight that they chose to use Sinn Fien, the political wing, and only after this was there any progress. One wonders if it isn’t simply a matter of time and discussion on a rational basis for Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

I can only assume that those who choose to orchestrate these kind of acts understand the implications for those they are associated with, however casually. It’d be a shame if it was simply a blind devotion to the ideals that they proclaim so loudly – foot soldiers may buy the lies, but if the men at the top are not so clever as to have motives beyond those stated, it won’t be anything but a bloodbath that ends it. No, the men at the top understand what effect each attack will have and are using it to further their own ends – the seperation of mixing and cross cultural interaction that they see as a threat to their idealised way of life being primary amongst them in my opinion.
I wonder if the fact that Bali, dependent on the tourist dollar, is being targeted for this. I wonder if Bali is being targeted because it has a small but significant Hindu community which is integrated into the community dependent on tourism. I usually don’t show my bias or my inclinations to hinduism, the religon i was born with, because I try to maintain impartiality, but I can’t help think these things.

 Offer a solution? I’m not qualified to do so. Nothing is required to entitle one to express an opinion other than to be informed, but solutions should only be offered when there is the opportunity and the will to do it. I don’t see the will to do anything radically different to what’s happening at the moment. I think that however the first step is to not be cowed, to not be terrorised by the terrorists, because that will acheive one of their goals.

 Plus, right after is probably the cheapest time for flights and deals ;P

smartypress

Ok, so I’m totally a sucker for fancy new things, so when I see SmartyPress, I instantly go “Oh WordPress, won’t you please please please go over to Smarty Press?”, even though I want WordPress 1.6 as well.

Smarty is a templating library for PHP, and I still think we should have used it for our group project 3302 since it gives just enough power over the presentation that you get work done, but aren’t bogged down in catering for a templating system. “Enough power to shoot yourself in the foot with” is pretty much how it’s been put on the site itself. But yes, from Software Engineering standpoints, the seperation of things like these is vital. Imagine what it could do for WordPress themes. Very cool.

So SmartyPress 1.6 will definitely be something to look forward too, if it ever happens =) I’m going to go trial this on my local box and put it up for using on my site if it passes all the various simple stability tests.

i don’t know…

I don’t know whether to turn this into a whiny emo blog where I do all my overthinking and detail my life or to use it as a techie kind of blog. I’m leaning to the latter at the moment, but either way, there’s very little to write about at the moment.

And I know at this point I still haven’t linked to this blog from my main one, mainly because I want to do it after I get some actual content here to link to, unlike my other efforts. Oh well.