Author: Darragh

  • Follow me on Twitter & site design changes

    I have a new public facing twitter account. You’re welcome to follow me and bug me with questions, or abuse, or niceties. It’s really up to you. You can find me @dbfmurray. If you’re still following me on my now private twitter account, I’m still checking that, so don’t fret. I’m also changing some of…

  • The phrenology of Django Unchained

    Tarantino’s latest work, Django Unchained is a hell of a ride, great in all the ways you’d expect from a Tarantino movie – violent, stylish, vivid and often comedic in its outrageousness  If you haven’t see it, it’s set in antebellum America and concerns itself with freed slave, Django (Jamie Foxx), attempting to become reunited with…

  • Cybercrime as a security issue.

    I’m presently doing a bit of reading into the concepts of cyber warfare and international security. It’s a fascinating and fairly new field and my reading comes at a time when the Australian PM, Julia Gillard, has specifically articulated threats emanating from cyberspace as a security priority for Australia within the next decade. Gillard’s speech…

  • Cyberspace, commodification and the history of me

    A friend of mine recommended I watch the documentary “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace”, a three-part series devoted to exploring the culture of technology, its evolution and its impact upon modern society. The first episode, “Love and “ starts off by using Ayn Rand’s objectivism as a touchstone (never a good thing…

  • On non-compulsory voting in Queensland state elections

    The Queensland Government has opened up a discussion paper regarding electoral reform. It covers a lot of things, but one issue that has been making people take notice is the proposal to remove compulsory voting in state elections, meaning the responsibility of turning up at the ballot booth would become entirely optional. Many writers have…

  • Vale Hobsbawm

    I was saddened to hear that British historian Eric Hobsbawm died overnight. When I was studying history, Hobsbawm’s writings were immensely important to me. Not only was he a great historian with a powerful command over historical facts, but he also was a talented writer, something very important when reading a subject that is not…