Thursday, May 29, 2008




In ITS obsession with property prices and housing affordability, Sydney has overlooked a startling fact: the city is awash with empty buildings. Empty dwellings in a city desperate for places to live

Can we change the heart of politics? Sydney – Last Person Switch on the light
The number of unoccupied residential dwellings in Sydney counted by census workers in 2006 was 122,211, with the highest number found in the inner city. That does not include the thousands of empty warehouses, pubs, churches and shops.

A Wikipedia-style site that allows users to map the number of empty buildings in Australia has crashed after an overwhelming response from the public. Daniel Cox, the creator of http://bubblepedia.net.au said he was racing to fix the site in spare moments between his professional duties as a specialist anaesthetist.


Empty Spaces; [; Some of today's hottest gadgets are already infected when they leave the factory; DANIEL COX thinks the housing shortage is a myth and he has a map to prove it;]
• · UK - Councillors launch bid to put people into vacant homes ; US - The National Vacant Properties Campaign exists to provide everyone – individuals, advocates, agencies, developers, non-profits, and others – with information resources, tools, and assistance to support their vacant property revitalization efforts US - The National Vacant Properties
• · The real crisis in the UK isn’t about the sub-prime collapse, it’s about consumer demand. Is the same thing happening here? The financial malaise is spreading ; A bleaker, poorer world results when languages are allowed to wither. It says that other world-views are expendable Squandered worlds
• · · With its latest Cyber Storm II exercise now completed, the US Department of Homeland Security says it expects to release an after-action report analysing the event in August, and is beginning to plan for Cyber Storm III in 2010 DHS offers first take on Cyber Storm exercise ; New Zealand Inland Revenue Department (IRD) introduces new asset control measures to prevent further losses Taxman finds all but 36 lost PCs
• · · · With Thomas Friedman's morning keynote appearance at BEA it would be poetic to characterize BEA as HOT, FLAT AND CROWDED, but between recent statistics and the opening day mood we'll have to stand with just flat: Exxon is green... GM is green... Yeah. That's not a revolution friends, That's a party. We're having a green party. But it has nothing to do with a revolution. You'll know it's a revolution when somebody gets hurt. When companies have to change or die BEA; Publishing convention not quite green
• · · · · Premier Morris Iemma says he does not feel disloyal to the NSW Labor party over his plans to privatise the state's electricity sector Privatisation ; If Australia is going to take information security seriously, we need more people like the ATO's CIO, Bill Gibson. Gibson
• · · · · · There is a tendency to only look at what we're doing today, instead of stepping back and asking: "what do we need to focus on for the future? Why You Need To Plan for Innovation Today; Lindsay Tanner, Minister for Finance and Deregulation, CeBIT Australia, 21 May 2008. Good morning and welcome to the e-Government Forum at CeBIT Australia 2008, the largest information and communications technology event focused on government issues in this country. How to use information technology to govern more effectively and efficiently is a particular concern of mine in my role as Minister for Finance and Deregulation. My portfolio includes the Australian Government Information Management Office - AGIMO - the agency responsible for managing the federal government's information technology requirements." Keynote address to the e-Government forum ; Speech discusses various e-government and related topics such as procurement, web 2.0, IT / ICT and service delivery, citizens' engagement … Paper