The political coverage in the SMH today is all about one thing. The schism in the Liberal Party. It’s nice to have the Herald’s attention drawn so far away from any other schism.
Here’s a nice little analogy that even Ben – analogy hater of some renown – is sure to appreciate. Crabb argues that Costello is waiting in the political wings. Costello keeps saying “I’m doing nothing.”
“But Costello is like a hippo in a ballerina skirt – he’s kind of noticeable even when he’s not doing anything.”
Mars Hill twitterfied
Language warning – but it made me laugh.
This is what should happen to all reality TV contestants. They should be subjected to humiliating mimicry from around the globe.
Ben Bathgate’s GTD series mentioned Evernote as a useful tool – here are some more reasons to use it.
Luxury Segway.
Interesting article on coffee roasting – the difference in flavour based on different levels of “roast” colour.
Facts about Beer. Including a 4000 year old recipe.
I wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Philip Jensen. Possibly. He conducted the marriage of my parents. And was the minister at the church where they met – where he was under strict instructions to make sure mum didn’t marry anyone dodgy. His success or otherwise at that is debatable.
Anyway, I digress. Philip Jensen is the Dean of St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney. He has a blog. Of sorts. His latest post is about TV and the immorality – or otherwise – of modern television. It’s an interesting tie in to the post I wrote on the Wire. He starts off talking about Channel 10 news:
“It is hard to watch TV without, gratuitous violence, sexual exhibitionism, vulgarity of speech, dehumanising of the body in grotesque forensic murder investigations and comedians who rarely rise above toilet humour.”
No, sorry, that’s about all TV.
Here’s what he says about the news (with a note on their need for compelling disaster content:
“The alternatives are to watch the news and the sports shows. But the news is distorted by the need to have visuals (e.g. they love bush fire season, floods and train wrecks) and by the agenda of politically motivated journalists. And the sports shows appear dominated by gambling, the abuse of alcohol and overpaid professional celebrity athletes.”
He makes a lot of interesting points – worthy of consideration by Christians from the consumer standpoint – and against censorship – which is the natural position of Christian lobby groups when it comes to “inappropriate content”…
“As a society we do not want censorship. Censorship is always dangerous – as the censor’s power grows, truth is often his victim. Instead our society has chosen individualism and “community standards” as the basis of public entertainment. This assumes that what is watched does not affect community standards. It opens the door for the steady descent of the community into accepting decadence. So far only child pornography has been left as a taboo. “
He also makes the point that we’re all indirectly paying for free-to-air television (not just the ABC).
“The solution that is given to us is: “If you do not like it then switch it off. Nobody forces you to watch it and it is not costing you anything.” It is true that we do not have to watch it but it is not true that it costs us nothing. Taxpayers pay for the ABC and the free-enterprise taxation system called advertising pays for the commercial stations. All products we buy are more expensive because of TV. Whether or not you ever watch it – you are paying for TV.”
He likes DVDs of TV series as alternatives to the tripe that we’re dished up when we turn on the box.
“Of recent times I have purchased and watched DVDs of TV series. This means I can see what I want to, when I want to, without the intrusion of commercials (that for some reason are always louder than the show they interrupt). It means that I can better monitor what fills my mind. God, in Philippians 4:8, commands us to fill our minds with whatever is true, honourable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and praiseworthy. Given the cost of DVDs one wonders whether in the future parish churches will develop community libraries to pool our resources of quality viewing.”
A library of quality viewing isn’t a bad idea.
I need to try this while it’s still summer. Frozen iced coffee. On a stick. I would think the Vietnamese filter is negotiable. Main ingredients – coffee and condensed milk. Sounds good.
Mirror, mirror on the floor – who’s the best player of them all?
I spent a disproportionate amount of my time in grade 11 and 12 trying to answer that question. Downstairs. At my parents house. Playing table tennis.
If only we’d had a table this cool:
Mirrored table tennis tables and glass pool tables are the future. The future is now.
The rules for gunfighting. Just in case you needed them. There are 28 here.
Highlights:
1. Forget about knives, bats and fists. Bring a gun. Preferably, bring at least two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns. Bring four times the ammunition you think you could ever need.
10. Someday someone may kill you with your own gun, but they should have to beat you to death with it because it is empty.
21. Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet if necessary, because they may want to kill you.
For those parents out there looking for more information on the baby mop from yesterday… here’s an ad.
Baby Mop from Chris Milk on Vimeo.
Some people come up with really good ideas for earning money using the internet. Like the guy who sold the world (I bought Liberia but it seems this site has shut down since).
He stands to make $US66,795 (and get a year’s supply of t-shirts) by wearing people’s shirts. And blogging/videoing the experience. Here’s the description:
“Everyday in 2009 is for sale!! January 1 is $1 and each day goes up a buck until December 31 at $365. Want me to wear a shirt to promote the launch of your company? Want an interesting way to wish you friend Happy Birthday? You are free to buy any day(s) throughout the year. If you want to buy multiple days, email me.”
I was alerted to this site by my relative, and sometime blog reader, Martin Howard’s Facebook status. He’s got today. US time. The 20th of February. To promote his book on subliminal marketing. Which I haven’t read, but it’s genetically predisposed to being good.
Unfortunately, when it comes to booking your shirt space all the cheap seats are gone – he’s sold every slot until September.
Here's what has excited me from the blogosphere today.
Ben Bathgate’s GTD series mentioned Evernote as a useful tool – here are some more reasons to use it.
Luxury Segway.
Interesting article on coffee roasting – the difference in flavour based on different levels of “roast” colour.
Never trust or hire a motivational speaker with a mullet.
I couldn’t think of an Apple pun better than that. Sorry.
Marketing expert Martin Lindstrom has released Buyology, a book on modern marketing, covering the results from a study onto response to common marketing methodologies and global brands.
The findings, featured in The Australian, suggest that sex no longer sells. And that Apple is probably a cult. But we all knew that.
They found an enormous correlation between a powerful religion and a powerful brand. Precient points are:
“In a world where religion in many societies has begun fading away, brands have begun to take over the role of belief. We as human beings need something to believe in and brands have become almost mini-religions,”
“Think Apple, they have their own ‘temple’: their flagship store; their own religious leader: Steve Jobs; their own cross: the Apple logo; their own rituals (hundreds — just ask an Apple fan); their own enemy (Microsoft) … you name it.”
“These days sex isn’t as mysterious any more as it is everywhere, so that’s the reason why sex doesn’t sell.”
Miranda Devine sparked controversy by pre-emptively blaming green policy for the fires in the SMH last week. There was an outcry. I even wrote about it. I started following a fake Miranda Devine on Twitter (there’s also a fake Andrew Bolt) – but I can’t link to them because Twitter is down again.
The same venerated publication has another scribe – who leans more to the left – Elizabeth Farrelly. She fired this verbiage seemingly in the direction of her colleague in her take on events.
“Cut the trees! Burn the undergrowth! Hunt the sharks! Lynch the greens! Reprise, repay, repel. But in truth, to swim fish-filled, murky waters at twilight is to tattoo a big ‘BAIT’ sign on your behind. And to inhabit the bush, especially as climate change takes hold, is to make yourself fuel.
Certainly, we should feel compassion. And certainly, there should be regulations. Quite probably there should be more assiduous back-burning. But to blame green policies – to cull already endangered shark species, to reduce tree cover – is to blame nature for human folly.”
Now all the Herald’s big guns (except Annabel Crabb and Peter Hartcher who both write exclusively about politics) have had their say on the matter.
I mentioned earlier today that I’m not really comfortable giving parenting advice. But whipping up one of these little practical costumes seems like a reasonable idea to me. Put your kiddy’s crawling to good use. It’s much cheaper than a roomba.
Also spotted at bookofjoe.
This is the greatest invention since sliced cake. Seriously. Ever tried being obsessive compulsive and cutting a cake for a wide range of size preferences? No? Me neither.
But I imagine this cake tin that does the distributing for you is the answer. Found at bookofjoe.
$US36 seems a small price to pay for party parity. Ok, not really parity in the mathematical sense, more parity in the sense of being satisfied with your portion size – I just liked the alliteration.
Kottke.org is a mostly terrific blog on the “liberal arts 2.0”. It’s where I found that Abbey Road timelapse. And many other interesting things. Including this. Perhaps an iconic image depicting the current economic climate…
Huh? It’s a bunch of shipping containers you say. What has that got to do with the economic times you ask. Well, they’re stockpiling containers in Hong Kong because China’s exports have slowed dramatically. So there you go.
The Hotel Noorla in Ingham has a couple of shipping containers converted into almost quaint hotel rooms. Maybe some entrepreneur should get in and buy the lot of them.