There was one aspect that Orwell did get glaringly wrong: the impact of technology. the limited technology shown in 1984 is all very much in the service of the state: the newspaper re-writing tools and the continuously broadcasting screens for example. But these two are both very poor predictions of how technology actually evolved over the three and a half decades between writing 1984 and 1984. Photocopiers deeply limit the effectiveness of re-writing newspapers – people would have their own copies, not much point in changing the centrally stored version then? And a network of screens continuously streaming into everyone’s homes? That’s just crying out to be subverted as a peer-to-peer network.

But these are just details and a symptom: Orwell got something much more fundamental, and surprising, wrong.

Technology is inherently liberating, not controlling; equalising not oppressive.

How is this possibly so? Modern history is replete with examples of dictators using weapons technology to do pretty horrible things in stamping out rebellion and even more recent history shows huge corporations attempting to do exactly what Orwell predicted, to their customers. But these are just anecdotes. Other anecdotes show mobile phones and hand-held GPS units being of incalculable aid to rebels. Corporations are trying to spy on their customers precisely because they were completely blind-sided by developing technology. I want to address a more fundamental point than these anecdotes.

Technology is probably reasonably described as the output of humanity’s tool-making instinct. No one really thinks of it as broadly as that, especially now. It’s inconceivable to regard the chair and the kettle as technology even though they were both once cutting-edge. Instead, technology is regarded as the recent output of our tool-making instinct. There is a question going begging here though: how do recent technological developments migrate into that background of things we just have?

Going back beyond the kettle and the chair, the spear would have once been cutting edge technology, developed after extensive R&D and in the face of punishing market conditions and intense competition by some family somewhere in the African savannah. The immediate effect of this new development within that family would have been stunning. Instead of only the elite runners capable of running down an antelope being the ones providing meat, anyone strong enough to wield a spear suddenly could. Given the very different physical requirements for the two hunting techniques this was certainly a different set of family members. And right there, the spear as a piece of technology has liberated some members of the family. Sure, hunting is still the domain of strong, young males, but this is the savannah of African a million years ago we’re talking about; it took until 1900 before we even gave women the vote. Equality is a luxury the ancient savannah could never afford.

This is still just a fascinating theory, but think on the implication: the spear was a valuable piece of technology because it helped overcome a physical limitation of the family. And this is generally true of all technology: it is valuable when it lets people do something they otherwise couldn’t. Technology is about placing the unobtainable within more people’s grasp – but not by devaluing the goal, instead by extending the grasp. As the spear placed more meat within the grasp of the family on the savannah, so the mobile phone places more of your friends within range of a chat or a helping hand now. Technology is leverage; it takes what you are already capable of and then by adding a little more in just the right way, makes you capable of something new. By it’s very nature technology is about raising the average standard of what can be achieved, leveling the field for all.

It is, in two words, inherently empowering. And to me, this is the answer to that question. When technology perfectly articulates its own empowerment it migrates into the background of society, no longer a big deal. Just there for everyone to enjoy.

Of course, that’s not to say all technological developments achieve this holy grail of leverage. Much development results in brand new technology that never sees widespread use. Many times this is the natural inefficiencies in a capitalist market. Frustrated technologists try to cope using open forums for ideas and development. Open source is a modern example, but public universities have always openly shared their work.

But still we see failures of technology.

Now, if you accept that technology has succeeded when it multiples out the abilities of humanity then the development of the technology is just part of the problem. Just as important is the interface between it and actual living, breathing humans. For technology to effectively leverage our abilities, it must become an invisible extension of ourselves; the interface, the line the technology draws around us, must be a perfect fit between humans and that goal, right there, the one they’re really after. Without something close to perfection, you’ve got just another disappointment, and worse: a waste of someone’s time spent thinking. There is a huge class of ignored and overlooked problems here in these interfaces. These are problems of design; not in the narrow ‘how-does-it-look’ sense, but in a much deeper ‘how-is-the-functioning-of-this-going-to-interact-with-a-human’ sense.

And I have come to realise that this is a question that I care deeply about. Technology is not an end-in-itself. It must be designed to be used. No, that’s too weak. Technology must be designed to make people’s lives better. When designing something don’t just think ‘how will this be used?’ Instead, think ‘how will this make someone’s life better?’ Don’t waste your life on simple, easy half goals: aim for the big one. Find your target market and work out how your idea will make their life better. And I mean, really make someone’s life better. Imagine your product fully integrated into their life. Can’t see it yet? Well, back to the design then. You’re aiming for a glove here. Accept nothing less.

Looking back at some of my essays I can see that I’ve been talking around this indirectly for some time. I recently listened to a podcast by Merlin Mann of 43 Folders and John Gruber of Daring Fireball that managed to crystallise my obsession for me. So I’m now planning of focusing on this idea. I want to see technology designed first and foremost to interact with humans, to fit into their lives invisibly and to thus make their lives better.

There will still be book reviews, because I love to read and writing those makes me a better reader, but I will be attempting to focus my other writing on this central idea: Technology Designed around People. I have no idea if I’m going to succeed, but at least focusing my rants might make me less annoying to be around. I also believe that society has a fixed amount of attention, this will be an attempt to focus some of that attention where I think it should be.

Short answer: yes, with an if. Long answer: no, with a but.

If you want to be working in computer science, you’ll probably be programming. A lot. And in fact, this is probably what you want to do. Like all professional skills, programming takes a large amount of practice before you become truly proficient. The commonly cited figure is 10,000 hours of practice to become proficient in your chosen profession. The sooner you get started on those 10,000 hours, the sooner they’ll be over.

Becoming involved with an open source project is a great way of getting your practice in. You could also practice on your own project of course. But, you’ll get more satisfaction from contributing to an open source project that others use. To become involved though, you’ll need some level of proficiency. So hack around with your own projects; write a game; then start reading the mailing lists of an open source project you use and pick a simple bug from the tracker. There’s lots of advice out there on how to become involved, I’ll leave that up to you.

That’s a pretty good reason to become involved with an open source project. And if that is your reason, head on out there kid, you’ll do great.

That’s the ‘if’. Now for the ‘but’.

Notice above that I referred to getting involved with an open source project? Not the open source community? If you’re a particularly bright kid in your class, then please let me beg you to think deep and long before becoming involved in the community.

Why are computers important? Step outside of your beloved field for a moment and ask yourself, why do you think computers have been an important and interesting invention? Why is writing software for expensive, abstract machines to be used by the middle-class of the first world a noble endeavour? How can better computer science help people? I mean really help people. Not allow them to quickly find a cheaper price on that expensive gadget they don’t need, but do the really important things: cure malaria, educate the third world, connect with strangers, fall in love. Whatever it is you think needs solving.

Personally, I do think computer science has the potential to make the world a better place. And I believe you don’t need to be working in some research lab to achieve that. My definition of making the world a better place is simple: find someone with a problem, solve it, and leave them to find other problems in need of solutions. As an organic, growing, network every individual has the ability to change the world for the better by focusing on this question: where do I see problems that my expertise can help solve?

And here lies my issue with the open source and free software communities: being able to recompile the kernel to your operating system is a problem that only other programmers have. The rest of the world see computers and software as tools to solve their own sets of problems. Anytime a computer or program does not do what they want, a problem goes partially unsolved. And that particular unsolved problem is a problem you’re simply unqualified to solve. You, as a programmer, can only ever indirectly help with those problems.

Lifting our heads outside of our insular worlds of programmers and computer scientists, we can see that the rest of the world has a problem with computers. These supposedly powerful devices, that the first world has invested a huge amount of resources in improving over the last 20 or 30 years just don’t seem to have reached their potential. Instead, rather than constant improvement with the goal of improving the lives of real people, computing has become insular. Insanely insular. Programmers either solve problems only other programmers have, or they simply duplicate the work of other projects, poorly. Very poorly. And this is most obvious in the free software communities. In my opinion, the world does not need another poor implementation of a 38 year old operating system. The world does not need another poor duplicate of photo editing software. The world does not need another poor duplicate of office productivity software.

The world needs the potential of computers applied to new problems. Or, at the least, original solutions to already solved problems. And in my opinion the free software community, in its current incarnation, will never deliver on either of those. The free software community is tackling what they see as a moral and ethical problem: source code wants to be free. Their current solution to this problem is to duplicate every popular piece of software with a suitably free license. So entrance into the free software community requires accepting this, and then duplicating existing commercial software. To me, that sounds like a complete waste of my brain.

And if you’re as bright as I think you are, then it sounds like a complete waste of your brain as well. Please, choose to advance our industry, take it in new and interesting directions. Start your own company, work for a large company. These are not immoral decisions. You will be advancing the sum total of human knowledge, you will be solving real problems of other people. People without the expertise to solve these problems. Expertise you have.

And this is without even getting into the ethics of duplicating someone else’s work.

The free software rhetoric can also damage both computing and free software. Personally, I found the moral aim of the One Laptop Per Child program repugnant. But, their efforts to re-imagine what computers could be was exciting and full of potential. But, eventually all for naught as the program has been tried, found guilty and executed in the court of free software. Why? Because they chose to use a non-free (gasp!) wireless network driver and because they chose to allow Windows to run on the device. The project was found wanting, and abandoned. Why does the choice of underlying operating system matter that much? If the project believes their new approaches were of value, why not try to improve Windows? It’s not as if these computers would be powerful enough to re-compile Windows anyway, even if the code was available.

You’re young, you have brains, you have energy. Please think about it before deciding that the free software community is where you want to devote your energy. Do not write off working for Google, Silverbrook Research, ThoughtWorks, or even Microsoft. There is nobility there, I dare say more than there is to be found in holding back our industry.

• In the world of desktop computers, anything that is not Windows, is niche.

• In that niche, anything that is not Mac OS X is niche.

• In that niche, anything that is not Ubuntu Linux is niche.

• In that niche, anything that is not Red Hat or SUSE Linux is niche.

• In that niche, anything that is not one of the commercial workstation UNIX operating systems, like Solaris, or AIX, or HP/UX is niche.

• And down there, in that niche, in that fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the world of desktop computers, FreeBSD is niche.

From a technical point of view it actually has quite a lot to recommend it. The kernel is very well tested and reliable. For a UNIX, it has generally made decisions for correctness over performance. Something Linux certainly can’t match. The user land is a consistent space, harking back through over 20 years of tradition. The ports system is a pretty good way to install and manage software.

But. In the whole world there are perhaps 15 people using it (no, not really). Anytime you Google for any problems or issues, you’ll find Linux, and just have to hope that you can figure out to translate the instructions.

And this is to say nothing of the complete dearth of available software. To use FreeBSD is to always be several versions behind in Firefox. To have to compile Emacs from CVS source. To have to tweak the source code to your video driver.

FreeBSD may once have had the One True Filesystem layout, but not anymore. Linux is now nearly the king of that hill. Don’t use FreeBSD as your desktop. You really don’t care about how good the kernel is. You really do care about not having to compile video drivers. Worst Desktop Operating System Evar.

The seduction of more power, I guess.

Well, times were tough in the Northern Territory: the only book I could find even vaguely on programming the Mac was The Apple Human Interface Guidelines. The original edition, by Tog, from the mid-1980’s. That was it. And this was, of course, long before general Internet availability.

What was I going to do? That was all I had, so that’s what I read. Cover to cover. Twice.

The Apple HIG is a somewhat unusual technical manual. Instead of just documenting all the available possibilities, dispassionately and exhaustively, this book took a very firm position. There was a right way to do things and things must be done the right way. The HIG then set out to list the right ways and the wrong ways, with justifications.

This preaching about the true path was both low-level and high-level: as well as detailed instructions on how to place and label buttons, it was also about how to design whole programs for the smoothest and most consistent interaction with the user.

And there was installed my damage. That book didn’t just encourage good UIs, it demanded them. And now it seems that I demand a lot from computers. Computers shouldn’t be hard to use, in fact we shouldn’t even notice that we’re using them at all.

Now every time I have to do something just so the computer knows what’s going on (like ‘Save’) or I have to jump through a hoop because it’s easier for me to jump then the programmer to write their software well, I feel a deep sense of annoyance. It doesn’t have to be this way, dammit! Computers are meant to free us from drudgery to allow us more time to do the things we enjoy. Or, more cynically, the jobs we’re more efficient at. Either way, doesn’t matter to me. But, most of all, computers don’t have to be this way. It isn’t that much harder to do the right thing. We could do the right thing in the 1980’s; we can do the right thing now.

As a programmer I could be frustrated and demoralised by the state of my industry. Maybe later. For now I choose to rant and rail against this, and fight. Much to the endless delight of my highly fortunate colleagues.

We’ve had mobile phones in our lives for quite awhile now. First they were enormous, and only tradesmen had them. Then they started to get small, really small. So small you couldn’t use them. And then they got bigger again: now swelling with countless features. Torches, cameras, pedometers. Some of the features stayed, but not many. Next was email, and that’s been pretty popular. The Internet made its way onto our phones as well, but like video calls didn’t really go anywhere.

This Friday the iPhone will launch in Australia. And predictably people are going crazy. When was the last time you knew the launch date of a mobile phone ahead of time? Sure, most of the hype is because it’s Apple and everyone loves Apple and isn’t it so gorgeous and stylish and Oh My God I’ve just got to have one. Deep breath. But is there something else going on here?

The core function of a mobile phone is making phone calls. Well, yeah. But there have been countless other features rammmed into them. Haven’t some of these taken off as well? Yes. There is one that is on every phone in Australia, most of the phones in the world and used by the overwhelming majority of mobile owners; in some demographics more than phone calls: SMS. But SMS is just a very limited single-person to single-person version of online chat. AOL first released Instant Messenger back in 1997 and it’s been huge ever since. IM, with presence, blocking, buddy lists, group chat, location mobility is a far richer chat experience than SMS. So why don’t you, yes, you reading this post, have an IM client pre-installed on your phone? Why hasn’t SMS gone the way of SIM card addressbooks (remember those?) and been completely replaced by IM?

Firstly though, why is that an interesting question? As I said, we’ve been carrying mobile phones for a long time. And in that time phones have progressively become more and more powerful. Sure, they’ve lagged in the power stakes behind standard computers, but I think you’d be surprised by how little. The original iPhone was equivalent at release to a four year old Mac laptop. Four years! I was writing interesting software (including a chat system) on 18 year old Macs! So clearly phones are powerful enough. How come then, given that we have these mini-computers with us more than our real computers there aren’t interesting applications for them? How come it’s still phone calls and SMS? This is expecially frustrating as these powerful devices have permanent connections to the Internet, everywhere! Something I could only dream of when I was first writing software 15 years ago!

People have tried. Shrinkwrapped application developers, vertical integrators, shareware developers have all tried to make a living writing software for phones. And one by one they’ve given up. And after much thinking the industry as a whole has come up with a batch of reasons why there has been no success. And a lot these reasons boil down to there is no killer app. There isn’t one thing that people want to do with their phones other than make calls or send texts. And I bought that line too. Until I thought of SMS and IM.

So why no IM? Well firstly, you are not Nokia’s or Ericsson’s customer. You are their product. Telstra is their customer and you are being delivered to Telstra so Telstra will buy mobile network gear off Nokia. Interesting. It may not be true any longer, but Nokia used to make more off that gear than their phones. The phones were a loss-leader to drive sales of equipment.

Why the 160 character limit on SMS? Because SMS messages are squeezed into a gap in the control sequences that phones exchange with the towers to remain connected to the network. In other words, SMS messages are sent anyway, all the time, even if you haven’t put anything in them. They are just part of the network! So why do the telcos charge 25c per message? Because they can. Oligopolies are cute like that.

Imagine how many text messages are sent every day. Think about how much is charged per-text. All of that income is pure profit for Telstra and the other telcos. That is an enormous, uncontaminated by overheads revenue stream. That kind of revenue is addictive. And here is the crux of the problem with mobile phones: the telcos became addicted to their existing revenue streams and then, with the handset manufacturers as their willing accomplices, set to work on completely controlling and stifling mobile phones as a platform.

Writing applications for phones is incredibly difficult. I don’t want to go into the problems here but the two main issues are the half a dozen different platforms with inconsistent implementations of the same platform across devices and end-user distribution and installation are essentially impossible. This situation did not happen by accident though. The telcos strongly encouraged this situation to emerge. Why? Because they are terrified of just becoming a utility that can only charge for data flowing down the pipe. It may be too late, but this was a very short-sighted fear.

Apple and the iPhone are changing this world. Not because Apple are out to save the world, not because they only care about the user experience, not because their phone is pretty. Nope, that’s all hype. The iPhone changes things because for the first time, you the phone buyer are actually the customer of the handset manufacturer. Apple is not trying to sell network equipment, Apple is trying to sell phones. And they decided that to sell phones the phone has got to have a great browser. And the ability to install other applications. And somewhere to buy those apps from.

You are buying the iPhone and you’re liking it. Or you’re not buying it, but those particular features sound pretty good. Why can’t my Nokia have those? And pretty soon the telco’s worst fear is realised: they are just a pipe through which we ship packets. And I can guarantee when that happens that 160 characters worth of IM conversation will cost a lot less than 25 cents. Try 0.03 cents. That’s 833 times less! At today’s rate, no demand discount applied!

So, relegated from giants of the economy to the likes of water and sewage for the telcos. But, it didn’t have to be this way. As well as providing the network, telcos had something else: a billing relationship with the consumer.

What if when browsing Amazon on your phone when you bought something you didn’t have to enter any credit card details? Instead the web site communicated directly with your phone, used a rolling key from there to sign the invoice and then billed it straight to your phone bill? Gee, sounds pretty convenient to me. And a hell of a lot more secure than handing out credit card details. This can only work with phones, and telcos have only a short window remaining to make this happen before something else comes along. They had their chance to replace the credit card companies. But because of their addiction to their immediate (but ultimately doomed) revenues, their willingness to screw their customers and stifle an entire world of technology for almost two decades they appear to have done themselves out of a future.

I, for one, shall not mourn their passing. And do not mourn for Nokia either. Brainless henchman is not a noble calling.

Anyway, for all that I’ve always just thought it was funny: Ahh, aren’t they cute? No knowledge of information theory at all, but here they are arguing about transmitting bits. Still cute though. Just a geeky hobby, kind of like theology. Theologians and audiophiles arguing about things that aren’t really going to have any effect on their lives, that they don’t understand, and in the end are all indistinguishable.

And I’ve always assumed that on some level audiophiles knew just how ridiculous they were. They’d never admit it, but there was always something in there that would prevent them from doing something really stupid. But, no!

Behold! The $500 Ethernet Cat-5 cable! And it’s not even blue, like a proper one! And they’re available used! Some idiot actually bought one of these!

Oh, and please, please, please can an audiophile attempt to defend this? I won’t respond, but it’s always amusing to listen to.

Well, of course the dry spell was caused by complaints. Apparently I was posting too many book reviews, my blog had become too much of a book-blog. It’s funny the effect that complaints and criticism can have. When you have to work out if everything you write is something that someone else will want to read, the effort of making that decision on top of the effort of writing can very quickly become pretty expensive.

It’s stupid to complain about this though. That kind of complaint is something everyone has to go through as soon as their output is read. If you want readers, then expect that, and if you’re not after readers, then don’t publish. Pretty simple. At first I kept writing my reviews without publishing, but that wasn’t enough, so they’re now back. But it doesn’t really work to say I want to publish this and readers be damned. So, a compromise. I’m interspersing my book reviews with other posts, like this one. Stories, photos and good old rants. The backlog of reviews will eventually clear. I’m not sure what will happen then…

But I also wanted this post to be some sort of explanation for why I have continued the book reviews. Originally, I said that I just wanted to keep track of what I’d read and any first impressions. But, I’ve found that planning to write a review changed the way I read and, for me, in a good way.

I found I was reading books a lot deeper. I was predicting plot twists, noticing intentional coincidences and becoming more involved and aware of the atmosphere the author was trying to create. I also started to notice the techniques the author may have used to achieve this. Turns of phrase, pacing with a description at a well-timed juncture to set the mood. The language they use and how it might affect your impressions. I found that this closer reading managed to significantly increase my enjoyment of a book – even a not particularly good one. I can’t promise it’s for everyone, but I’ve got a lot out of it and it will continue.

Everything that appears on this blog is written twice. Well, most things, like longer posts such as this and all my book reviews. The first writing is done in long hand using a fountain pen in a journal of some sort (currently, an unruled, leather wrapped Corban + Blair given to me by a couple of friends.) Then I type the entry out using Emacs and post from MarsEdit. A combination of old and new technology that I like. So why do I have this involved writing process? Why not just type directly into Blogger’s text edit field?

Well, there’s a couple of reasons. Some apply to everyone, and others apply only to me. Firstly, Blogger’s (and all web app) text fields suck. You’re just far to exposed too exposed to bugs in too many different pieces of software. If I’m going to write a long post, I want some more confidence that it’s going to survive to be published. Secondly, I live inside Emacs and I’m officially Emacs-retarded; I want my reflexive editing keystrokes to do what I expect.

But those are just technical reasons and only apply to the MarsEdit/Emacs parts of my process. Why the long-hand? The fountain pen?

In truth, I don’t really know. And to be honest, ‘affectation’ would be the biggest part of the answer. It’s hard to justify a fountain pen and a leather-bound journal any other way.

But, but, but… a blank computer screen has never been a very creatively inspirational sight for me. Even when programming. I just can’t start thinking when I’m staring at a blank text window. I need to get away from a computer and into a garden and then I can start to think.

That was without planning or thought. While living in Darwin, when doing any programming I’d figure something out – and then find myself in some part of the garden. I’d got up from the computer and walked around the garden on auto-pilot.

Anyway, a journal and a pen get me away from a computer. And once you’ve written with a fountain pen, you’ll never be able to write with any other pen again. There’s just something about the way the ink lays down while the nib glides effortlessly across the page…

But there’s also something about the act of writing for me. It’s just a great way to crystallise and direct my thinking. Of course it largely comes out as a mess on the first pass. Incoherent sentences, the same word repeated over and over again. The typing it all out again is a fantastic editing process. I can’t help but fix up all those little problems. In the end, I enjoy the writing process, much as I enjoy reading. These are things that work for me, with how I want to read and write. Always make sure you do what works for you.

Finally, in all my talk about what I write in my blog you may have noticed that there was no mention of the computer science that used to be a staple of this blog. Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. My new work project is intensely interesting and gives my a lot of scope for thinking about comp. sci. and experimenting with ideas: the sort of thing I used to do here. But the damn, freaky secrecy of my work prevents me from talking about that. There is a slight cracking of the paranoia though, and hopefully at some point I’ll be able to write about that here.

Also, hang around on reddit enough and you see a veritable flood of badly written tutorials on the latest programming feature to catch the eye of the blogosphere. I choose not to contribute to that until I have something substantially interesting to all. Surprisingly enough, my lament about protoypes fell into that category. I believe Shrew also will; there will be more about that at some point.

Thomas Watson from IBM said that he could foresee a need for perhaps five computers worldwide, and we now know that that figure was wrong, because he overestimated by four. – Clay Shirky

There is only one computer in the world now, and that computer is the World Wide Web. Developers must know that, understand that and believe that.

Software does not matter unless it is written to run on that one computer. Know that too.

I have been saying this for awhile now, and some people have had some trouble understanding what I mean. I am not saying that the only thing that is to be written must be web applications. What I am trying to say is that if you are writing software it must be able to be used by applications and software that does run on the Web.

If your software does not, then it will simply be ignored. That’s not malicious or intended as a criticism of your code, I’m sure it’s very good. Think about it this way: as OS/2 faded away any software that only ran on OS/2 simply stopped mattering. This is just happening again, except all operating systems are fading away, replaced with that one computer.

So, if you have some amazing idea for writing some beautiful video processing code in the current functional-language-of-the-moment, you must have a plan for making that code useful to the web otherwise no one will ever use your code.

It was very satisfying to also see him so thoroughly ejected from power: only the second sitting prime minister to lose his seat. Ahhh…

And Australia can now try to once again become a better place to live.

There has been much discussion over why Howard deserved to lose. Many have correctly pointed out that for all his claims he was not a leader who championed much reform; that the continuous 11 years of economic growth was really part of a longer 16 years of growth started under the previous Labor government due to actual economic reforms; that he no longer offered any kind of vision for the future of Australia; that his threat to hand over to Peter Costello was seen as just that: a threat; that it was just his ‘turn’ to go.

For me, while all of those (except the last) are true, none come close to the real reason why I have always been adamantly against Howard, and why I am particularly happy that he has now been voted out.

Howard was a leader who created a government of isolation, selfishness and meanness. And of course this sort of attitude at the level of the federal government can’t help but affect the entire shape and direction of Australian society.

Consider a handful of events under Howard’s watch:

• Pauline Hanson spewed her racist, xenophobic vitriol without any form of condemnation from the government, permanently damaging our image and reputation throughout Asia.
• Refugees aboard the MV Tampa were prevented from entering the country, extending our damaged reputation to the entire world.
• The GST, a fundamentally inequitable tax hated by both small businesses and the poor alike, was introduced. When there was apparently no need as all the earnings were returned as tax cuts.
• Children nearly drowning while on their way to the Australia was used as a wedge to further incite anger against refugees.
• A deeply unpopular war was started with the sole justification of supporting George W. Bush.
• Tax cuts were the sole mechanism of delivering benefits to the population: a mechanism that always favours the rich over the poor.
• University educations became a mechanism to turn a profit.
• The enormous earnings from the global resources boom was squandered without any investment in social services.
• The Australian republic movement was deeply damaged.
• There was absolutely zero progress on Aboriginal reconciliation: capped with the ‘intervention.’ Itself worryingly reminiscent of the Stolen Generation.

Ultimately, this was a government of the mean to benefit the rich. Under Howard and his cronies Australia became a more selfish country, a more racist country, a country of people who would not do something just because it was the right thing to do.

I was always against Howard because of the damage I thought his ideaology was doing to the fabric of our society. In the end, my theory is that he lost because people finally saw him for what he was. WorkChoices showed that he didn’t really care about his ‘battlers.’ And also, I believe that people didn’t want to be selfish and scared anymore. The country wanted a more positive view of the future. You can only be terrified of your neighbour for so long before you decide that it’s enough.

It is interesting to see that others are also coming to this conclusion. My fervent hope is that his legacy is seen for what it really is. In the end, the country will be a better place without him. Hopefully, it won’t take too long for the damage to be repaired.

Good riddance Howard, we’re better off without you.