Just realised that I've reached a watershed moment in my digital life. I'm on a very expensive mobile broadband connection, and on a pension, and I'm budgeting around the inevitable $30 - $40 per fortnight. Not only that, but I'm finding that megabytes have replaced dollars in a lot of my calculations... "20megs for a doc search tool! Wayyyyy too expensive!" despite the program being free.
I love Second Life but I'm rationing myself to a half hour every week or two, just to stay in touch with developments. As far as my virtual life goes, then, it's a case of Mb being what allows me to virtually live or not, so in that way, data has become my currency.
Hampering that flow of data (as in [take note Mr Conroy!] censoring the Internet) is the equivalent of starving your population. Of intellectual stimulation, vital information, and the right to communicate.
The utopian (dystopian) vision of Gibson may well be upon us, quietly and almost unnoticed. And Australia is taking the rigth steps to becoming a Fascist regime on this new landscape. The sooner we abandon the idea of "country" and start substituting "server" for it the better I say.
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