Blocked by Regions, It’s not just DVDs

On the train coming into work this morning I was listening to TWiT 239: Meat Up, and where Leo plugs his audible pick of the week;

Leo Laporte It’s his – Daniel Suarez really, obviously is a geek but I am surprised he’s is not here because he just obviously is into this stuff. All right, well let’s make The Wind Up Girl our pick of the week from Paolo Bacigalupi. It’s 19 hours and 34 minutes, you’re going to get value for dollar there, it’s a long book. And you can get it free by going to audible.com/twit2, actually you can get two books, so why don’t you get that and Daemon? And one of the great things about listening to these books is now you can participate with Sword and Laser and you can join their conversation at – is it theswordandlaser.com?
– TWiT 239/Transcript

I though that it would be worthwhile putting both The Wind Up Girl, and Daemon onto my Wish List.

This wasn’t too difficult for Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Wind Up Girl a quick search for the author and click you’re in the list.

Not so simple for Daniel Suarez’s ‘Daemon’, I cannot even get the product from a search from my account! A quick search via Google and the issue is clear;

We’re sorry. Due to publishing rights restrictions, we are not authorized to sell this item in the country where you live.

And publishers wonder why people resort to illegal downloads!

banning cartwheels

Proving stupidity is alive and well in risk assessment the Belgian Gardens State School in Townsville (North Queensland) has banned all gymnastics activities during breaks, claiming it is protecting students from injury. Parents say students have been threatened with suspension if they are caught doing unsupervised playground acrobatics.

I wonder if they have already removed all of their playground equipment as this would surely lead to injuries?

Perhaps Glenn Dickson, the Belgian Gardens State School principal, should watch Gever Tulley’s 5 dangerous things you should let your kids do and have a good hard look at himself.

“It was just one principal’s decision and there’s no state-wide directive that cartwheels are banned in all Queensland schools or anything like that.”
– Rod Welford, QLD Education Minister

How about a state-wide directive for intelligent risk management processes?

[1] What a flippin’ joke – Townsville school becomes cartwheel cops (2008-Aug-26) [Townsville Bulletin]
[2] Minister calls for backflip in Townsville cartwheel saga (2008-Aug-27) [Townsville Bulletin]
[3] Remember ‘go outside and play?’ (2008-May-15) [Los Angeles Times]