Issues
« Previous EntriesEnvironmentalists have it wrong — the economies of scale and inventing the future
Thursday, September 10th, 2009There’s a push on to ‘return’ to the idylic times where a man would work the farm chatting to his cows while his lovely wife baked a loaf of bread (probably with a dab of flour on her nose) while a pail of milk (direct from the aforementioned cows) stands on the bench beside her.
There’s a push on to do-it-yourself. To be handy around the garden and home. To plant one’s own vegetables and to bake one’s own bread.
But is that really good for the environment? I doubt it
Lotteries: Mathmatically speaking, they’re not really a tax on the stupid
Tuesday, December 30th, 2008Note: There are a lot of numbers in this post, so I’ve rounded a lot of them off, and included some footnotes. If you don’t like numbers, then consider yourself warned.
It’s been said* that “Lotteries are a tax on the stupid”. The premise being that anyone who spends money on a lottery ticket is just [...]
More provocative images …
Sunday, July 6th, 2008[There is] no evidence that [if] eating beef is the community standard [it] will persuade a vegetarian to approve of it.
Socially acceptable bullying?
Sunday, June 1st, 2008OK, let’s start by getting one thing out of the way: I’m watching Big Brother again this year. I didn’t watch it last year and only glanced at it the year before. Each year it got more and more tawdry in the hope for ratings gold in catching two twenty-somethings in a drunken tryst. But [...]
Warning: Provocative Images may offend some viewers
Thursday, May 29th, 2008Here in Australia there is an enormous brouhaha surrounding the photography of renowned photographer Bill Henson (left). If you’ve missed it, the controversy surrounds his use of nude child (teen) models in his photography (below).
I’ve been meaning to write a blog post entitled “What is art: I’m right, you’re wrong.” But it’s a difficult one [...]
The pointlessness of Earth Hour
Sunday, March 30th, 2008You’ve probably heard of Earth Hour, it started in Sydney last year and has spread around the globe this year. The idea is this: turn off all your lights for an hour.
The pointlessness comes in the confusion over why this is a good idea.
Turning your lights off for 1 hour will save approximately zero energy. [...]
lolpoli – lolcats with a political bent
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008From Wikipedia’s entry on lolcats:
Lolcats are images combining photographs of animals, most frequently cats, with a subjectively humorous and idiosyncratic caption in broken English referred to as Kitty Pidgin[1], Kitteh, or lolspeak.
They’re all over the place and they’re really dumb and annoying. Try searching flickr for lolcats. You get the idea.
Then I saw a few [...]
RSII: Reverse Signatures for Insecure Identification
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007It occurred to me the other day that I use the same avatar for all my ‘presences’ online: Jaiku, Orkut, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter (back when I used it) and anywhere else that offers the ability to upload an avatar. That’s it there on the left.
I like to call that avatar an RSII: Reverse Signatures for [...]
In defence of scalpers
Saturday, October 20th, 2007Around the world there is outrage and condemnation of the practice of scalping: purchasing event tickets when you have no intention of going to the event. Instead you intend to sell the tickets at an inflated price once the event sells out.
Here in Australia, and I read in the USA and other countries too, there [...]
Dumped by Web 2.0?
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007Dear Agony Aunt,
I logged onto Facebook this morning and my girlfriend’s status has changed from ‘Boyfriend’ to ‘Single’, so I checked my Jaiku followers and she’s not following my updates any more.
OK, so I just made that up, but if web2.0 is how we’re all communicating now (broadcasting rather than narrowcasting) I think it’s [...]