Monday 30 April 2007

Why Are There No I.T. Managers on Star Trek?

There aren't you know. It occurred to me the other day that given the huge amount of computer-based technology on board the Enterprise, it's pretty surprising that no IT Manager has ever featured among the crews of any of the series. Just take a look inside one of those spaceships. You can't turn around without bumping into some kind of data input or output peripheral. There's computer screens covering practically every bit of wallspace and everyone's carrying 'round a wireless device of some kind or another; PDA's, tablet PC's etc, but I couldn't remember ever hearing about a crew member whose job had anything to do with computers (apart from using them of course). To make sure of this I perused a few of the huge number of Star Trek sites out there, and put together a complete manifest of the featured crew members and their jobs ... here it is:

THE ORIGINAL SERIES
Kirk: Captain
Spock: Science Officer
McCoy: Medical Officer
Scott: Chief Engineer
Sulu: Helmsman
Uhura: Communications Officer
Chekov: Navigator, Tactical Officer
Chapel: Nurse
Rand: Yeoman

THE NEXT GENERATION
Picard: Captain
Riker: First Officer
Troi: Counselor
Yar: Chief Tactical Officer
Crusher: Doctor
Data: Operations Officer
LaForge: Helmsman

DEEP SPACE 9
Sisko: Commander
Nerys: First Officer
Dax: Science Officer
Worf: Various incl Chief Tactical Officer
Obrien: Chief of Operations
Bashir: Doctor
Odo: Chief of Security

VOYAGER
Janeway: Commanding Officer
Chakotay: First Officer
Tuvok: Chief Tactical Officer
Torres: Chief Engineer
Paris: Helmsman
Kim: Operations Officer
7 of 9: Astrometricist
Neelix: Guide, Cook, Morale Officer, Journalist
EMH: Emergency Doctor
Kes: Airponics Officer and Trainee Nurse

ENTERPRISE
Archer: Captain
Tucker: Chief Engineer
T'Pol: Science Officer
Reed: Weapons Officer
Mayweather: Helmsman
Sato: Linguist
Phlox: Doctor

... no IT Manager. Not even any help desk guy!! What're they going to do when the system goes blue screen? How do they make sure they've bought enough software licenses? Who's going to help them install the next Windows upgrade, and how do they expect to keep on top of their spam? Dear Lord, they've got everything else there, they've got a Linguist, a Counselor, 5 Doctors, even an Astrometricist (whatever the hell that is!!). There must be some rational explanation for this, because the fans of Star Trek are so concerned about how it's all supposed to make sense and adhere to Star Trek "Canon" and stuff.

I know all this because I crossed paths with Trekkies. I'm prepared to admit it. After 3 decades of hurriedly switching the channel whenever it inadvertently landed on a Star Trek episode, I finally got sucked into the latest series - "Star Trek - Enterprise" I like it. I look forward to Sunday nights so I can watch this weeks episode on Sci-Fi Channel.

Anyway, during an idle weekend half-hour I checked out Star Trek sites on the web, went to one and read the forums. Trekkies hate Star-Trek Enterprise. They think it's a sacreligious abomination because it deviated from "the Canon", Because Kirk was supposed to have been the first one to have made contact with Romulans but "Enterprise" has Archer doing it 100 years earlier etc. etc. I'm sure you get the drift, so I wrote in one of those forums that "Enterprise" is the best series and all the other Star Trek series' suck!! I'll admit I was waving a bit of a red flag, but you should have seen the crazies come out from behind the furniture ... Inside 1 minute they were calling for my blood. Telling me I'm insane and they're going to search me down and kill me.

But getting back to why there's no IT Manager on Star Trek ... well it's a TV show isn't it? I mean, that's why there's no IT staff on it, because no-one wants to watch IT staff on TV! Who cares if it doesn't all make sense, it's just a stupid TV show.

I'm with the rest of society on this, the silent majority who disdain Trekkies because Trekkies get all worked up about something that's essentially meaningless. You don't see everyone else doing that do you? You don't see Joe Average getting all worked up about something as stupid and meaningless as sports, religion, politics or patriotism, do you?

Thursday 26 April 2007

Intelligence for the Masses?

One ability that distinguishes humans from most other animals is that they can create tools to assist them in their various pursuits. Humans are not completely unique in this regard, some species of bird and monkey also create tools, but their tools are nowhere near as good as ours!

Humans have been making tools since the early stone age (about two million years ago), that's why we're so good at it. Before the 18th century, most of our tools were simple devices designed to give us some kind of mechanical advantage in accomplishing a given task. Then Britain gave the world the industrial revolution and the age of the machine was born. In the late 19th century Edison invented the light bulb and the age of electric tools was upon us. In the middle of the 20th century the transistor replaced the vacuum tube and the digital age was born.

It became possible to create machines that could perform calculations. At first these calculations were relatively simple and the machines were comparatively slow, but the relentless march of technology enabled machines to perform more and more elaborate calculations in less and less time. It wasn't long before some people noticed that the human brain is also a calculating machine, and that this latest kind of tool could be thought of as an analogue of the human brain. These people speculated that calculating machines would continue getting faster and more elaborate and that a time would come when it might be possible for a machine to equal the human brain in speed and complexity.

In 1956 the term Artificial Intelligence was coined by John McCarthy. Six years earlier Alan Turing had proposed the Turing Test as a means of determining whether a machine has the capacity to demonstrate thought. In 1965 Joseph Weizenbaum wrote a program called ELIZA, which enabled a computer to converse with a human on any topic. Since then a great deal of research has gone into trying to make machines smarter, and Ray Kurtzweil in his books: The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Age of Spiritual Machines speculates that by 2030, machine intelligence will not only surpass human intelligence, but in doing so, machines will become "conscious".

Opponents of the drive for machine intelligence are worried that if machines become smart enough, they will gain personalities and become evil, ambitious monsters that will usurp their creators and take over! What these people have failed to understand is that machines have already developed malicious personalities and have, for a number of years, been doing their utmost to turn our lives into a living hell.

The photocopier at my work, for example, knows exactly how to push my rage button. It sits there looking qualified and efficient while I carefully drill down through its menus telling it exactly what I want it to do (double sided, colour, staple and collate), then I entrust my valuable originals to it's helpful-looking feed-tray, press the GO button and the bastard immediately turns my originals into pulp, and jams up the copy paper so far inside its guts that nothing short of a crowbar will get it out again, then the bloody thing's broken for the rest of the day and I have to endure dirty looks from my fellow-workers until the bloke from Ricoh comes out and explains like I'm a 4 year old about how it's all my fault because I should have fanned the bloody paper before I put it in the machine. Excuse me but this is a $15 thousand machine, and all I'm asking it to do is photocopy a bit of paper! Try and tell me that machine doesn't have a personality.

And what about Windows? Do I really need to share a practical anecdote to convince anyone that this collection of ones and zeros is, in fact, a dangerously psychotic, insanity-inducing maniac? Every day this villain conspires to turn my documents into gibberish by incorrectly re-numbering my list points, applying absurd formatting to my letters, Americanising my spelling and then going catatonic and losing my last 4 hours of work into the digital void. "Did you save it?" asks the helpdesk guy. As if he needs to ask.

If you're waiting in terror for the day our obedient machine slaves turn on us, you can quit waiting, it's already happened, and we still think it's us that are in charge.

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Beware of Rectal Leakage!

In 1968 the world was an exciting place, full of hope and promise for a future in which the marriage of science with a burgeoning consumer economy would deliver countless innovations that would transform our lives. In 1968, Procter and Gamble were one of the many companies riding this exciting wave of hope and innovation and accordingly, in that year they introduced their latest product; "Olestra".

Procter and Gamble are an American company built on candles and soap and are culturally prominent for the phrase; "soap opera", which originated through their sponsorship of radio serials in the 1920's and 1930's. With Olestra in 1968, they hoped to capitalise on the newly emerging "diet food" craze by presenting a low-fat synthetic alternative to naturally-derived cooking oils. In America it took Procter and Gamble nearly 30 years to get the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) to approve Olestra, but in 1996 they got their approval and from 1998 Olestra started appearing in products, notably in Frito Lay's "WOW" branded potato chips (which were later rebranded as "Light") and P&G's "Pringles-Fat-Free" potato chips.

One of the mandates the FDA insisted on however, was that the packaging of these potato chips display a warning to the effect that the cooking oil; Olestra, produces a number of unpleasant side effects including abdominal cramping and Rectal Leakage.

Yes, Rectal Leakage.

That does mean what you think it means.

Perhaps understandably the addition of this label was seen to impact negatively on the sales of these products, so in 2003 the FDA withdrew the requirement. The products are still on the market, they are still cooked in Olestra, but today Frito Lay's website contains no reference to either abdominal cramping or rectal leakage, and markets these products under the compelling slogan; "Good Food for the Fun of it!"

My sentiments exactly ... it's pretty hard to find anything more fun than diarrhoea.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where, if we want to be thin, we can still shovel down bucketloads of tasty snack foods, and all we have to put up with in consequence is a bit of Rectal Leakage!

Onward we bravely march!

Monday 23 April 2007

US Resistance to Metrication (the real reason)

On September 3 1999, after a 286 day journey from Earth to Mars, a $125 million NASA probe called the "Climate Orbiter" plunged through the Martian atmosphere on a trajectory that was about 100km closer to the surface of the planet than had been planned. The resultant heat caused by atmospheric friction damaged the probe's systems to such an extent that it became completely dysfunctional. The probe was never heard from again but is assumed to be currently somewhere in space orbiting the sun; a very expensive testament to America's refusal to adopt the metric system.

The reason the probe was 100km closer to Mars than it was supposed to be was that Lockheed-Martin, the spacecraft's manufacturer, used the archaic U.S. traditional system of measurement (the system currently widely-adopted in the U.S.) to program navigational information into the probe, while NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California used the metric system (used throughout the rest of the world). The mismatch prevented navigation information from transferring between the spacecraft team at Lockheed-Martin and NASA's JPL team, resulting in the $125 million bungle.

There are only 3 countries on Earth that have not officially adopted the metric system. They are Liberia (in western Africa), Burma (also known as Myanmar, in Southeast Asia) and the United States of America.

The US Metric Association are working to try and convince Americans to change to the metric system (principally to ensure U.S. exports are not harmed by foreign unwillingness to work in inches and pounds), and the U.S. Government has adopted a pro-metric stance with the Metric Conversion Act (1975) and a 1991 Presidential Executive Order, but average Americans are still resistant to this change for 3 major reasons:

1. The metric system did not originate in America - Americans do not believe there is a world outside America.
2. The Metric system is French - America is afraid of France.
3. Americans are special

But seriously, the real reason for American resistance to the metric system is rooted in popular entertainment. If America went metric, all those songs where people are prepared to traverse 1000 miles in the name of their love would now have to present 1609.34 kilometres as the required distance. Instead of your lips hovering an inch away from your lover's, they'd now be 2.54 centimetres away, and how cool would Eminems movie; "8 Mile" have sounded if it was called "12.87 kilometres"? It all just fails to roll off the tongue in any lyrically satisfying way.

So while there may be all kinds of compelling reasons why America should adopt the same system of measurement used by the rest of the world, until someone finds a way to make 0.114 kilograms sound sexy, the quarter-pounder is going to remain, the quarter-pounder.

Sunday 22 April 2007

An Atheist President?

In a similar way to the way cows want to know what other cows are up to, so they can do the same thing, humans are very interested in the opinions of other humans, so they can have the same ones. This interest gave rise in America to the Gallup Organisation; a private group that collects statistical data about what Americans think (on those occasions when they are thinking).

Between the 2nd and 4th of March 2007 the Gallup Organisation asked Americans the following question. The responses are shown below.
Between now and the 2008 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race, and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be ..., would you vote for that person?


This data is of particular interest at present because two front running candidates for pre-selection as the presidential candidate for the Democrat party do not fit the standard mould of White Male Protestant, one being black (Barack Obama) and another being a woman (Hillary Rodham Clinton). While these figures, on the face of them, do not appear to reflect too badly in terms of average American prejudice against blacks and women, (93% and 89% respectively would be prepared to vote for a black or a woman), look at the numbers from the reverse:

7% (about 20.8 million) of average Americans would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified candidate from their party, because they are black, and 11% (about 32.7 million) of average Americans would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified candidate from their party because they are a woman.

But that's not the whole story. Down at the bottom of the list are Atheists, with less than half the surveyed Americans being prepared to vote for them. Statistically, Americans are far more likely to vote a Mormon into the White House, than an Atheist. For those who aren't aware of what Mormons believe, you may like to refer to my previous post. This data is spectacularly supported by statistics of the religious affiliation of current U.S. Senators, 5 of whom (Robert Foster Bennett, Mike Crapo, Orrin Hatch, Harry Reid and Gordon H. Smith) are Mormons.

Currently there are no U.S. Senators who site their religious affiliation as: "No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic", yet this category is embodied by 15% of the U.S. population according to the 2001 Census. So it is very fortunate for Mr Obama and Ms Clinton that they believe in God (and that they aren't gay), otherwise they'd have no chance of ever getting elected. Can you imagine? A gay, atheist female president? Or a gay, atheist black president? or even a gay atheist black female president? My God! Give me a President who believes Adam and Eve were Americans any day over that!!!

Thursday 19 April 2007

What Mormons Believe ...

Mormons believe that in 1823 an angel appeared to a teenager named Joseph Smith and told him he had been chosen to translate the book of Mormon which was written on golden plates hidden near where Joseph was then living in Palmyra, New York. These plates were written in a language called "reformed Egyptian". God taught young Joseph how to translate reformed Egyptian and the "Book of Mormon was the result.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence today that these golden plates ever existed because after he was finished with them, Smith returned them to the angel that gave them to him.

The Book of Mormon is the account of people who came from the Middle-East to America between 600 B.C. and 400 A.D. These people were the Jaredites, who were from Babylon, and the Nephites and Lamanites who were Jews from Jerusalem. The Nephites and Lamanites had a war in America in which the Nephites were defeated in 428 A.D. The Lamanites continued and their descendants are the people now known as native Americans. The Book of Mormon is the account of the Nephite leader, Mormon, and is about the culture and civilization of the Nephites, and about how Jesus came to America.

Unfortunately there is no evidence today that anyone ever came to America from the Middle-East between 600 B.C. and 400 A.D. and absolutely no archaeological evidence that these societies ever existed in America, except for the so-called Lamanites, the native Americans.

Mormons believe that Adam (of Adam and Eve fame) once lived in Spring Hill, Davies County, Missouri. They believe that after Jesus was resurrected he visited America, and until the church realised it violated civil law and renounced the practice, they believed in polygamy (Joseph Smith had 27 wives). There are about 13 million Mormons in the world. About 6 million Mormons are American. The Mormons send out missionaries (door-knockers) who convince an extra quarter of a million people to become Mormons every year.

Ironically, most Mormons don't believe in the Tooth Fairy, despite the presence of considerably more evidence to support that particular myth.

Wednesday 18 April 2007

National Bullshit Hour

In the tradition of Earth Hour - an initiative of WWF-Australia held on Saturday March 31, during which more than 2 million Sydney residents turned off their electric lights and appliances between 7.30 and 8.30pm to show their support and generate publicity for the cause of saving energy - I propose a National Bullshit Hour be held in every Australian town and city, especially Canberra, at least once a year ... preferably far more frequently. The 10.2% drop in energy use recorded during Earth Hour translated to 24.86 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide that was not deposited into the atmosphere. Just imagine how much bullshit could be avoided if everyone in Australia just stopped talking for one hour.

While there has never been a serious academic study into the amount of bullshit generated by Australians every day, there seems little doubt that it runs into the tens of thousands of kBs' (kilobullshits - see appendix). Of course, as a nation the United States currently generates far more bullshit than any other country, but on a per-capita basis it seems reasonably likely that Australians, particularly politicians, business consultants, talk-back radio hosts and current affairs anchor-people, generate at least as much, if not more Bullshit than Americans.

John Howard has repeatedly defended his government's stance not to ratify the Bullshit Protocol, saying that any forced reduction in bullshit emissions could prove damaging to Australian industry, but he has failed to consider the potentially devastating long term consequences of over-production of bullshit. Although invisible, bullshit remains in the atmosphere for years, eating away at the all-important credibility layer. Considering Australia's already thin and fragile credibility layer, any further depletion of credibility could have dire consequences for the future of our children! But it is not just the responsibility of Government to reduce bullshit emissions, everyone has their part to play, from leaders of commerce and industry, right down to ordinary everyday Australians, we all need to do our bit to limit bullshit and preserve whatever precious little credibility we have left.

The National Bullshit Hour will help raise awareness of the issue of over-production of bullshit, and will result in actual, tangible reductions in bullshit emissions, if only for 1 hour. While this represents only a relatively minor reduction in annual bullshit, it’s a start, and will be especially relevant in the lead-up to this year’s federal election.

Appendix:
Metric measurements of Bullshit


1cBs: 1 centibullshit
100cBs = 1Bs
1000Bs = 1 kBs (kilobullshit)
1000kBs = 1 metric LoS (load of shit)

Tuesday 17 April 2007

Drought Solution #2: Bomb Antarctica

Even though attacking India and forcibly taking its water would be fun and make us feel tough, there's another, even more obvious solution to the current Australian drought, and it's even closer to home; Antarctica.

Depending on where you do your research, Antarctica contains anywhere from seventy to eighty percent of the world's fresh water, in the form of ice. It's just sitting down there, doing nothing much apart from being white, cold ... and wasted! Australia lays claim to about 42% of Antarctica (about 5.9 Million square kilometres). All we need to do is take a couple of ships down there, bomb a few glaciers, tow the resultant enormous icebergs home, melt them down and use them to water our lawns and wash our cars. This is a terrific scheme, and the more you think about it, the more advantages present themselves, for example ... most climate scientists seem to now be in agreement that the climate is heating up, and that one effect will be the melting of the icecaps, and consequent raising of sea levels. So if we remove the ice and use it to fill our swimming pools we're really doing the environment a favour. Instead of rising, the ocean levels will presumably fall, thus revealing more land, yes, more land, which, as I established in yesterday's post, is something everyone wants more of.

The only obstacle to this inspired innovative plan is the Antarctic Treaty. This came into effect in 1961 and has now been signed by 45 countries. The high-minded objective of the Treaty is to:
"ensure in the interests of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord"
Article 1 of the treaty prohibits, among other things, the use of arms anywhere on the continent. This, unfortunately includes bombs, but there is one important caveat to this agreement: Military equipment may be used if it is for scientific purposes. It's high time Australia took a page out of Japan's book and started taking what they want in the guise of scientific research. The Japanese have been slaughtering whales in the Antarctic for scientific purposes every year since 1987, when the International Whaling Commission (IWC) declared a "International Ban" on commercial whaling, and who can blame them? Whale meat is not only delicious, it is also low in fat, high in protein and contains hardly any calories. We know this because of the scientific research the Japanese have conducted on it (the whale meat).

But I digress (the mere mention of whale meat is enough to get me dribbling). Fortunately, I am not alone in the abovementioned, pathfinding idea. In Australia we have a government-funded thinktank called the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which makes recommendations about, well, Australian strategic policy. Earlier this month they published a report about our Antarctic territories, creatively titled: "Frozen Assets". This report warns that climate change will generate tougher competition for territory and resources in Antarctica, and that Australia is not prepared for such threats. The report calls on the government to increase our military capability in Antarctica and advocates the development of new bio-prospecting and iceberg harvesting industries there.

It's heartening in these enlightened times to hear Australian policy makers disregarding old-fashioned, namby-pamby ideals like the ones that underscored the Antarctic Treaty, in favour of militaristic paranoia and commercial opportunism. We have spent too long catching up with our enlightened brothers and sisters across the seas, but I feel that long road may be close to its end.

Monday 16 April 2007

Drought Solution #1: Attack India !!

Why? Because they've got what we want ... Water. In Brisbane at the moment, the ongoing drought and resultant Level 5 water restrictions mean we can't water our gardens, wash our cars or fill up our swimming pools. We're now restricted to 4 minute showers and being encouraged to install water-saving devices and even rain-water tanks, though how a rainwater tank is supposed to help anyone when it never rains is beyond me. Any civilised inhabitant of 21st century Earth will agree this situation is completely unacceptable. Clearly something needs to be done, but our elected decision-makers are wasting time, Dilly Dallying about, arguing the relative economics of recycling sewerage, diverting reservoirs and desalinating sea water, when the real answer to the problem is staring us all in the face. WAR !!

One of the great attributes of the Human species is its ability to accumulate wisdom by learning from the past, and if there's one lesson the past has taught us it is surely that when we want something we should make war on our neighbors and simply take it from them. In recent times America has reminded us of the wisdom of this strategy by declaring war on Iraq because they wanted more oil, but this war was only the most recent in a proud tradition of wars waged on countries that have stuff we want. In the past, the stuff people wanted was often land. Land is good because the more you own, the more socially adequate you feel. So if, for whatever reason, you feel inadequate (eg; small penis, no friends, stupid) you can accumulate land and feel really tough, especially if you accumulated it by killing other humans.

In the 21st century, water has become an important and valuable resource. My local petrol station charges me about $1.25 for a litre of petrol, but a litre bottle of drinking water costs nearly twice as much. We in Australia need water. India has lots of water. Cherrapunji in India holds the world record for the highest rainfall ever recorded with 26,461mm in 1 year. Measured in another way, Mt Waialeale in Hawaii has the highest average annual rainfall with 11,680mm, but we can't attack America because they're much tougher than us. We'd end up with egg on our face. This is another lesson history has taught us; make sure, before you attack another country, that you can actually win, otherwise you will end up with egg on your face, and we Australians can't afford to get egg on our face because we don't have any water to wash it off.

Sunday 15 April 2007

A Brief History of Specialness

Human beings lack the capacity to understand that events may occur in the world that are beyond the control of a sentient, conscious being. Very young children imagine their toys are invested with consciousness and that their teddy bear will provide them with security and defense against unforeseen nasty events that may occur during the night. This concept of investing non-conscious things with consciousness is known as "Animism". Some children even invest such diverse and unlikely objects as the common blanket with this property. Similarly, it was impossible for our ancestors, several thousand years ago to accept that meteorological events such as drought or rain were the result of natural forces that were beyond human influence. They developed the belief that the forces of nature were influenced and controlled by the whims of conscious, sentient beings, and they named these beings; "gods".

Humans in these ancient times coexisted in extended family groupings known as tribes. Although the beliefs of these tribes were essentially very similar, each tribe held its own derivative set of beliefs, and each tribe felt that they were held in the particular favour of the gods, and that by performing certain ritual acts, such as sacrificing animals, or even other tribe members, they could win the favour of the gods and influence them to direct the natural forces in such a way as to bring prosperity to the tribe. This made them feel special.

Now, about 5000 years ago, one of these ancient tribes, a nomadic people known as The Jews, who lived in a largely infertile desert region now known as the Middle East, developed an idea that was a little different to the other tribes. Their idea was that, rather than many gods, there was only one God. In most other respects though, their particular variety of theism (belief in a God) was essentially undifferentiated from those of the other tribes. This God still controlled natural resources and outcomes, and could be influenced by the performance of human rituals. The Jews also felt that this one God held their tribe in special favour as differentiated from all the other humans on the planet. There was only one God, and he was a God that loved the Jews best among all humans. This belief made the Jews feel very special.

Nearly 3000 years later, a tribe known as The Romans learned to rely on their own ingenuity more than on the influence of the gods, and as a consequence they became highly skilled in the art of war. Successful conquests of other tribes provided the Romans with slaves and other resources with which to support their own tribe, which consequently expanded into something known as an empire. The Jews were among the many tribes conquered and subjugated by the Romans, and like most of the other tribes they were not very happy. During this time, one particular Jew named Jesus expressed dissatisfaction with the Romans, and for a brief time he was able to carry out a brave program of political dissidence, until the Romans got wind of his antics and had him executed.

Subsequent to Jesus' execution a breakaway tribe of Jews, known as the Christians formed and proclaimed that God no longer held the old Jewish tribe in his favour. This new Christian God held the Christians in special favour. The Christians introduced an important innovation into their belief, which was that people from other tribes were welcome to break away, join the Christian tribe and by so doing, win the favour of the Christian God. Because of this innovation the Christian tribe grew swiftly throughout the Roman Empire. This made the Christians feel very special.

A few hundred years later, in the 7th century, the issue became really confused when an elder of another nomadic desert tribe named Muhammad started telling people that God didn't favour the Christians after all, and that in order to win God's favour they needed to join his new tribe called the Moslems. Becoming a Moslem made people feel very special.

As the Christians grew more numerous they split into different tribes that each believed they were so special and that God loved them so much that they refused to talk to each other. The Moslems also grew and split into separate tribes and, like the Christians, they were also too special to have anything to do with each other. As for the Jews, they'd been special for so long that everyone had had plenty of practice not talking to them.

Eventually God told the Christians that they needed to murder as many Moslems as possible, and conquer a city in the desert named Jerusalem. So Christians went to Jerusalem and killed as many Moslems as they could. This was known as "The Crusades".

Later, a period of intellectual exploration arrived during which humans invented science - which explained that events are not directed by Gods, but rather by natural laws which are not influenced by prayer, sacrifice or any other ritual. But the Jews, Christians and Moslems all felt so very special that they decided to ignore science and instead continue pretending that events on Earth are directed by God.

Hundreds of years later, Christians, Jews and Moslems continue to feel so special about being Christians, Moslems and Jews that they need to slaughter each other on a daily basis just to reinforce how special they are. A very small minority of humans called Atheists wish that everyone could just learn to deal with their insecurities enough to feel special without requiring the endorsement of a God to do so. These Atheists are understandably hated and pitied by everyone else and no-one is paying any attention to them. Meanwhile, sales of Teddy Bears, Bombs and Bibles are skyrocketing.

Thursday 12 April 2007

Giraffes Can Lick Their Ears !!!

It's true!!! Their tongues are long enough (45cm / 18 inches). Some people speculate that they (giraffes) can lick their eyes as well, but I have been unable to verify this. Geckos however can lick their eyes and love to show humans how good they are at it. Most humans can't lick their ears or eyes, but some very special humans are able to lick their nose. Some even specialer humans are able to lick their elbows, but you're extremely lucky if you get to view one of these humans as they are very rare.


But back to the giraffe, they are the tallest land animal, growing to about 4m (16.5 feet). That's more than twice as tall as the average human, and they are highly prized by hunters for their meat, skin and for extracting good luck charms from their bodies. At the last estimate there were 141,000 giraffes on the planet. that's about .002% of the human population (about 6.5 billion). Compared to giraffes, humans are extremely successful. More humans are born every day (about 203,800) than the entire world giraffe population. But giraffes aren't endangered. The giraffe has not become endangered for a number of reasons.
They are not feared by humans and they are not killed for any folk medicine remedies. They do not compete for food with livestock such as sheep and cows. They do not eat farmers' crops, and finally, they are admired the world over for their enormous size, natural beauty, and mild nature
- San Diego Zoo

... that's fortunate for the giraffes, they're lucky they aren't giant pandas, there are only about 1,600 of those left. Or mountain gorillas, there are only about 670 of those.

Now pandas are cute and gorillas are funny, but I don't care, I'd much rather be a human. We're better because there are more of us ... even if we can't lick our ears.

Wednesday 11 April 2007

Don't Worry !!!

... the picture at the top of the page was not taken a few moments before this particular person impacted on the pavement spreading vitals to the four winds. It would be extremely tacky and insensitive to publish such a picture for your entertainment, or simply to enhance the cool vibe of this site, and if there's one standard I do intend to uphold rigidly, it is the extremely worthy standard of sensitivity. No, this is a picture of the late Dar Robinson; "The Worlds Most Spectacular Stunt man" and here is a link to a webpage showing several of Dar's spectacular stunts and a portrait of him with the sexy Morgan Fairchild.

Please don't confuse this image with Richard Drew's well publicised photo of a man plunging to his death from the north tower of the World Trade Centre on the 11th of September 2001. This is not that photo, and has nothing to do with politics, terrorism, or world affairs, rather it is an image I dragged from the bowels of my computer when looking for something that would provide a suitable atmosphere for this blog. This image was previously used to add colour and dynamism to invitations for my 40th birthday party and a number of the invitees remarked on what a morbid choice it was, but when you know the truth about the picture it only lends weight to the argument that you should never take things at face value. Although Dar may have suffered the odd bruise and ache following this death defying stunt, there was nothing particularly morbid about it. Stupid? Maybe. Morbid? Nah.

The appearance of this picture does, however, signify that I have now figured out how to add pictures and links to this blog in consequence of which I am now able to point you properly in the direction of the terrific sideroom blog where you can hear and read about independent music from the wonderful 80's Australian music scene.

I have also added a link (at the side of the page) to "Sweet Adeline", the Elliott Smith website (since I mentioned him in the last Blog and, well it's a good site).

You may be wondering (if you've read this far) what this blog is about. Despite my promise in the last post to not get hung up on tying this blog to any kind of coherent theme, I do know that it's important, at least from the point of view of healthy identity development, to try and not succumb to the temptations of self indulgence. And with that end in mind I attempted during an idle moment today to define some rules for this blog ... and ended up with basically 1 rule:

The Rule: This blog shall be about things other than me.

Having said that I feel it's only fair to deliver the caveat that whenever, during my ramblings, I feel a need for the blog to be about me, it will be. In the next post I will upload a photograph of a giraffe sticking out its tongue.

About the Title ...

Elliott Smith reminisced once in an interview that as a very young boy he would get married frequently to a local little girl he was in love with in a sidewalk wedding, then later, they'd have a row (an argument - not a means of propelling a boat) and the marriage would be annulled, only to have the whole process repeated a few days later.

There was something in that story that really appealed to me, that sense of the temporary, the lightweight. How decisions could be arbitrary and not binding. One of the great downfalls of adulthood I think is the binding nature, not only of decisions, but even of opinions. Like Billy Crystal (or was it Meg Ryan?) said in "When Harry Met Sally" - "It's out there now so you can't take it back". Well, I reserve the right in this blog to "take it back". For all writings to be arbitrary. For this journal to be non-thematic, not necessarily factual and not based on any criteria of excellence in terms of art, humour, emotional resonance, social relevance, coherence or public interest.

All the above is, in reality, simply an elaborate justification for a title which I actually got by looking at the list of "songs in progress" written on a piece of paper stuck to the wall next to my computer. The "song in progress", however was inspired by Elliott's comment, and I think the title has a ring to it, so it'll stay, for the time being.

Todays literary quote is from Philip Roth's book: "Operation Shylock": "when life looks least like what it's supposed to look like, it may then be most like whatever it is." Kind of an alternate take on John Lennon's "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans" but I think Roth is better, a bit closer to the bone maybe.

On the ABC tonight they had one of those public forums and the subject was "Happiness", ie; what is it? How do you get more of it? etc etc. Of course, 90% of the discussion centred around money, and I probably would have talked about money too, at this point in my life, but I was reminded of an opinion I arrived at a few years ago about happiness; that happiness is an invention of Hollywood. And like so many other elements of the modern western collective conscious, it is an illusion. Just another measure of our inadequacy designed to sell Coca Cola. But that's probably just the bitter whining of someone that never had enough money and too much time on their hands to think. (ya reckon?)

I want to point you in the direction of a great blog about independent (mostly) Aussie records of the (mostly) 1980's - a great time and place for indie music - that I just discovered, but I haven't figured out yet how to post links, so just google: side room 7" OK? Do it ... do it now ... go on !!!