Month: April 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – Sink or Swim

Sink or Swim
Now you’ve got your own little piece of land, the start of your empire, you’re ready to start out on a campaign of conquest that will hopefully eventually take you to the very pinnacle of humanity. The next step is the important one. This is the point at which you need to decide whether you want to continue in your quest for power.
crossroads
So once you’ve weighed up the pros and cons and decided to continue in your quest it’s on to bigger and better things, there’s no pulling out now. The best, quickest and most cost effective way to establish yourself as a power to be taken seriously on the global stage can be summed up in two words – NUCLEAR ARMAMENT. That’s right. Surplus nukes shouldn’t be to hard to purchase with the current political stigma attached to owning them. Nations are being forced to disarm and they’d probably be more than happy to have you take them off their hands. You may have to tell a little white lie at this point and promise to dispose of them “thoughtfully and carefully,” that’s what you needed Tasmania for, obviously.

To be taken seriously at meetings of the United Nations Security Council you need to have demonstrated not only that you have nuclear capacity but also that you’re not afraid to use it. I suggest aiming one of your missiles squarely at somewhere that no one really cares about, and pressing the little red button. A good option might be parliament house in Canberra, Australia, that’ll get you noticed, but not necessarily loathed by those over at the UN. The Australian people will also love you for it. I mean nobody likes Canberra anyway. It’s a hole.

What’s in a name?
So now that the Security Council is ready to discuss you, you need a name that they can bandy about the boardroom table. Studies have shown that of the last group of major global super powers there has been a preference for a reference to some form of unity. Nominal unity is the best kind, you can be united in name and your nature really doesn’t matter. When was the last time the United Nations made a unanimous decision? For your purposes it doesn’t matter if it’s a complete misnomer. The use of the word united as an adjective, or sometimes a noun, or the past tense of a verb, has been over done in naming new countries. You have your United States, United Kingdom, and United Arab Emirates, there’s no real room, or need, for one more. I’d suggest going for the less popular, but equally successful “Union.” Since our example empire is in the south it might be worth including that in the name. Just to help people visualise it during discussions. You don’t want to be to visual as that might lead to the Americans having some notion of where it is, and their next step is to send in the bombers. So let’s just call it the Southern Union of the lesser Australasian states. That should be enough to send the US bombers to Austria and keep our country relatively safe.

April 7, 2009

A bunch of links – April 6, 2009

April 6, 2009

Nothing to sneeze at

Much to my wife’s horror I bought one of these Facebanks. It’s probably the worst product I’ve ever linked to – and it’s the only one I’ve bought. He now stares at me on my desk. Looking lonely, tacky and unloved.

He needs a friend. Perhaps a sneezing tissue box is just what the doctor ordered. A bargain at $US14.95.

April 6, 2009

Protect us from ourselves

I got this email today, from a colleague.

“Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock ( MADE IN JAPAN ) for 6am . While his coffeepot ( MADE IN CHINA ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG ). He put on a dress shirt ( MADE IN SRI LANKA ), designer jeans ( MADE IN SINGAPORE ) and tennis shoes ( MADE IN KOREA ). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet ( MADE IN INDIA ) he sat down with his calculator ( MADE IN MEXICO ) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch ( MADE IN TAIWAN ) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA ) he got in his car ( MADE IN GERMANY ) filled it with Petrol from Saudi Arabiaand continued his search for a good paying Australian JOB At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (MADE In MALAYSIA ), Joe decide to relax for a while.. He put on his sandals ( MADE IN BRAZIL ) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE.! ) and turned on his TV ( MADE IN INDONESIA ), and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in … Australia….. “

Is it just me or is protectionism so hot right now? “Buy local” campaigns are the new economic black. I think A Current Affair is running a story (or they have already run it) encouraging their legion’s of viewers to buy Australian made. It’s odd. And pretty stupid. In fact I think it’s just clever marketing and a nice, easy PR campaign to boot. Who’s not going to cover a story about keeping locals in jobs. It seems the first thing advertisers do in a recession is call for protectionism – buy local campaigns etc…

Magnetic Island is in the midst of a protectionism row at the moment after a local operator missed out on a tender to a Sydney based comments. This operator’s comments to the local paper that these fly by night Sydney operators would “be crucified” if they tried setting up on the island no doubt does our region a world of good as we try to attract investment and tourists. Here’s a message to you new businesses from the businesses on Magnetic Island… “die or we’ll kill you”. Nice.

The campaign to reverse the Townsville City Council’s incredibly above board tender decision took on new legs over the weekend with a protest group carting around signs that said “Beach Hire is un-Australian” and “local jobs for locals”… Apparently coming from Sydney is un-Australian now. Basically this guy thought the job was his by right – and barely even scraped together a tender (and submitted it after the closing date). He lost. That’s life. Move on.

I like to preface these pretty broad posts by saying “I’m no economist but” so here’s the standard disclaimer. I’m no economist but in the face of a global financial crisis it doesn’t make sense to be acting in the national not global interest – because to me, the bigger problem for Australian jobs is the rapidly collapsing resource sector. A collapse fuelled by slowing demand from overseas. That’s right. We export this stuff. So we need other countries to be in a financial position to buy our stuff.

This is why I think the fact most of the stimulus package being spent on things produced overseas is a good thing. Sure, buying local is good. But buying foreign made is ok. And why should we value employment in our prosperous country with better than adequate social security over jobs in other countries with non-existant unemployment payments?

I’ve had a few conversations with a few people who “don’t want the money from K-Rudd” on principle. That’s fine. Give it to me. I’ll spend it wisely.

These conversations go along these lines:

1. We should be helping big business that’s how to fix the economy
2. We should be investing in infrastructure that’s how to help the economy – we need to be ready for the next resources boom…
3. This money is only going to keep retail employees in jobs – and most of it will go overseas to China.
4. It’s a big debt that we can’t afford to pay now – and it will be a burden on future generations.

From my very, very laymans meta-analysis of the current economic situation the downturn in Chinese production fueled by the lack of demand for their products seems to me to be a pretty prime factor in our resource prices tanking.

Pouring money into Chinese manufacturers is a good thing because not only will it give us access to technology as they develop it to suit demand, it will also stimulate demand for our resources – there won’t be another resource boom if other countries don’t want to grow and develop.

Sure, we could have a locally driven resource boom. But then the Greens would get angry that we’re chopping down trees to pave paradise for multi-storey car parking.

The debt thing is an issue – but once we’ve decided to spend money saving the economy rather than letting it tank completely and picking up the pieces the solution is going to require spending money, and governments are really the only entities in a position to borrow.

So here’s the response I sent to my colleague… some of the points are a stretch – but I wish sometimes people would think a little bit past the obvious “that money’s going to support a Chinese person not an Australian person” bias.

“Joe Smith started the day early having set his alarm clock ( MADE IN JAPAN – using Nickel from Townsville) for 6am . While his coffeepot ( MADE IN CHINA (using aluminium mined in Australia) – (with coffee grown on the Atherton Tablelands ) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG ) (using technology developed in Australian universities). He put on a dress shirt ( MADE IN SRI LANKA – using cotton grown in Australia ), designer jeans ( MADE IN SINGAPORE – also using Australian cotton) and tennis shoes ( MADE IN KOREA using Australian leather ). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet ( MADE IN INDIA from Australian steel ) he sat down with his calculator ( MADE IN MEXICO using components made from Australian resources ) to see how much he could spend today (based on Australian research). After setting his watch ( MADE IN TAIWAN using Australian components and sold to him by an Australian salesman ) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA and installed, repaired and serviced by Australian technicians ) he got in his car ( MADE IN GERMANY – sold in Australia by a local dealer who employs local mechanics – unless the locals are so lazy that he has to bring in workers from overseas ) filled it with Petrol from Saudi Arabia (shipped to Australia by an Australian company, transported by Australian truck drivers) and continued his search for a good paying Australian JOB (he wasn’t looking hard enough) At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day checking his Computer (MADE In MALAYSIA ), Joe decide to relax for a while.. He put on his sandals ( MADE IN BRAZIL – That is unAustralian – he should have been wearing pluggers) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE.! – again, there’s plenty of good Australian wine) and turned on his TV ( MADE IN INDONESIA filled with Australian content), and then wondered why he can’t find a good paying job in … Australia….. probably because nobody wants to buy our resources anymore because we’ve stopped buying stuff, or he’s too lazy to do anything he considers “menial” or beneath him…”

April 6, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – Getting Started

Getting Started
Baby Steps
Taking over the world, like everything else, requires careful planning. It is also important that you proverbially walk before you run, take baby steps, etc. The point is, that as your goal is quite big it’s important to get used to the conquest process on a smaller scale. Ideally this process should start in pre-school. If you’re the kind of child who took over the playground fort as often as you could you’re well on your way to taking over the world. If you weren’t that type of child then don’t worry, it’s not too late to start the process, it just may take some time getting used to it.

Practice, as they say, makes perfect. You should practice the conquest process as often as possible, in the work place, in the family, at play. If you aren’t usurping other people’s rightful authority over yourself then you just aren’t taking every opportunity available. Start today. When your boss next tells you to do something you have a couple of paths that you can choose that could help you on your way. You can do the job so well that your boss feels insecure resigns and hands you the reigns, you can delegate the job back to him, creating confusion about the power dynamic in your workplace or you can choose the violent conquest option and physically remove him from his office, I wouldn’t recommend this at such an early stage in the process, there’s a lot to be said for having the respect of a large group of people before you engage in any bloodshed, a large army also helps. There’s also the easy option of just complying with their wishes, but that’s not going to get you anywhere fast.

Taking the plunge
Anyway, when you feel that you are ready to move on to bigger and better conquests it is time to start looking for an area of land to lay claim to. If you’d been around more than 200 years ago this would have been a lot easier as there was a lot more “unclaimed” land around then. As most of today’s land is “claimed” you may have to resort to conquest. I would suggest, in the interest of not bringing any other already established super powers into the fray to early, that you start somewhere small and insignificant. Somewhere that no one really cares about, possibly an island state with a relatively small contribution to their nation’s day to day life.

If you’re an Australian, I suggest Tasmania. It’s small, it’s cold, it’s full of Tasmanians and nobody really cares that much about it. In terms of Australian culture the only thing it offers is a chance to see penguins, and lets face it, if you’ve seen one penguin, you’ve seen them all. If you’re not an Australian I’ve included a world map at appendix A, check your local region for an area that no one really likes. I’ve included a list of possible targets at Appendix B.

There are two traditional methods of conquest, conquests of arms, and conquests of alms. For your first endeavour I suggest the latter method. It’s less likely to raise the ire of larger, more powerful nations.

In the case of Tasmania, it shouldn’t cost you more than a couple of dollars anyway, so it’s well worth the investment.

April 6, 2009

Posts you might have missed

Too many posts to handle? Here’s a quick list of the posts you might have missed this week:
  • (Vege)table tennis
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Oddities
    This is quite bizarre. I had never been to Design Bloom prior to little sister number two’s recommendation last week – and now I’m posting another link to it. Where has this site been all my life? Merging two types of tables is nothing new – KMart has been selling an all-in-one air hockey/pool table/table soccer table for years. But this is so classy. Table Tennis meets the dining room.
  • AM/PM
    Posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 in Life
    I hate when people make a reference to AM or PM when talking about time and then throw in a reference to either morning, evening or night. It’s a redundancy. And a particularly annoying one. This morning on the ABC it was used over and over again. Like nails on a chalkboard. Warren Boland was giving a teaser to an upcoming segment about businesses opening their doors at 6.30am during winter – convenience stores I think.
  • Bakers delight
    Posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 in Oddities
    Zombies eat brains right? Human brains. So we should totally eat zombies. But they don’t really exist. So they should be eaten in cake form.But if you want to have your cake and eat U2. Or it too. Or eat something a little more human themed and realistic.Mmm. Cake. The making of is incredibly detailed – and pretty spectacular. Here’s a sample.
  • Courage under fire
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Church
    Saudi Arabia is not a nice place to be if you’re a Muslim looking to become a Christian.Anyone who wants to preach the message that Islam is a religion of love and tolerance should consider the punishment dished out on anybody who wants to leave the fold.In Christianity we call communities that shun or excommunicate those who leave cults. It’s one of the criterion a cult must meet.According to Islamic rules – as stated in the Hadith of Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57, which is authoritative for all Muslims:”Some Zanadiqa (atheists) were brought to ‘Ali and he burnt them.
  • Finally
    Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 in Life
    My iPhone has arrived. Thanks to the power of persuasion and a sympathetic employer.
  • Froth and bubbles
    Posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 in Coffee
    Stephen Morrison is the current World Barista Champion. So his opinions are worth considering when it comes to coffee. Here’s what he has to say about how to craft a nice cappuccino:”I hate froth. That horrible aerated hallmark of badly textured, often burnt milk. The word foam evokes much nicer sensory memories. For me, in the context of milk, foam means OK, froth means nasty.” And here’s why you should keep your coffee machine nice and clean (and well serviced).
  • Funniest Home Videos: The nursery rhyme edition
    Posted on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 in Life
    Little sister number three said she didn’t mind if I uploaded videos of her. So I have. And here it is. I will probably have to take it down because she’ll ask me to. Sadly there is more embarrassing footage that we’ll be keeping for her 21st. So cute. But a lesson for parents – taking cute footage of your kids will lead to their older siblings mocking them in their teenage years. Now, I must hop off.
  • Having a gBall™
    Posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 in Culture
    Tim asked if I’m planning to blog about April Fools news stories today. I was thinking about it. But hadn’t decided.I was watching the Today Show this morning – and I never cease to be amazed by the number of people fulled by a pretty poor April Fools joke – just because it’s on TV.The Today Show had school speed zones being manned by speedo and bikini clad “SPEEDOS” (an acronym they kept repeating) holding speed signs to remind drivers.
  • Knives out…
    Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 in Oddities
    Fancy yourself as the King Arthur of the kitchen – then these wall hooks from A+R will help solidify that claim – they should be a breeze to pull out too.
  • On the blacklist
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Life
    I’m on a blacklist. The Education Queensland blacklist no less. Apparently…Tim says:”Just thought i’d let you know your site has been blocked by eq hierachy. Congratulations on making it to the level of facebook and my blog… the question is now what am i gonna do when i should be working…. hmmmm i wonder if stick cricket can be tracked”Was it something I said? Now I know a little of what all those nasty sites will feel once the clean feed begins in earnest.
  • Our daily Fred: Leaning tower of piazza
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Coffee
    This heading only makes sense assuming you know that Piazza is a brand of coffee.And now you do you can drink happily from the leaning tower knowing you get my awesome pun.
  • Pac to the rafters
    Posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 in Oddities
    Ahh Pacman, where would I be without you… about four posts down per day I reckon.Pacman’s gravitational structure has always puzzled me. It has some bearing on his actual shape – are we getting a topographical view – or a view from the side? Who knows? Well, someone. And now you can explore Pacman with gravity as a factor thanks to the marvels of modern programming technology…Download it here.
  • PETA patter
    Posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 in Culture
    It’s been too long since I last bagged out PETA. Far too long. They are stupid. Let that be on the record here. If in 15 years someone is vetting me for some high powered role and this disqualifies me… so be it. I’ll stand by this. PETA is stupid. People who protest about animal rights are generally stupid – there’s a generalisation for you… but they’re particularly stupid when they’re protesting about people shooting dogs. In video games.
  • Pre-emptive strike
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Life
    Sometimes when I’m driving home I feel like one of the vehicles involved unwittingly in a game of Frogger. I wonder if the cars in the classic arcade game were theoretically able to see the pedestrian frog?There is one particular stretch of road just outside my office – at the bottom of Flinders Street – that is particularly bad. Flinders Street is dotted with gazetted pedestrian crossings – and yet they are widely ignored. Pedestrians cross without paying any heed to oncoming traffic.
  • Redesign
    Posted on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 in Life
    Dear feed readers – do youseselves a favour ay and check out the all new design of the still amazing and cool http://nathanintownsville.com.I don’t want to brag, I made it myself. By myself. Using a piece of nicely designed design software called artisteer and then doing some coding stuff myself. Oh, and if you happen to use artisteer without buying the real version it’s pretty easy to remove the “trial” watermark they put all over your site.
  • The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – the early years
    Posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 in Life
    A short history of World DominationBefore setting out on your quest to take over the world, it’s important to understand the history of world domination. There are those from the dusty pages of history whose examples we should follow as we seek to bring the world under our control, and those whose mistakes we should learn from.The Early Years A long time ago, in a planet not very far away, a planet so like our own that if you were to assume that it was our own you would in fact be correct, there lived many ancient civilisations.
  • Video hits
    Posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 in Church
    Chris just beat me to the punch on this. Video preaching. Some are for it. Some against. I’m mostly against. I think you’d have to be pretty arrogant to think that your sermons should be broadcast to the thousands in your auditorium – and then to thousands more in multiple auditoriums elsewhere around the city, state, nation or globe. But wait you say… Mark Driscoll does it – in a “multi-campus” format for his church – Mars Hill – in his city – Seattle.
Why not subscribe to the RSS feed so that you don’t miss a beat. Or a post

April 6, 2009

Bacon Henge

Gordo linked to a post about how Stone Henge may have been built. It’s a fascinating piece of British architecture.

It’s impressive. The YouTube video may be interesting – I don’t know, I haven’t watched it yet. That’s irrelevant. What is relevant is this very exciting recreation of Stonehenge – with bacon.

That’s what I call impressive architecture.

April 5, 2009

A bunch of links – April 5, 2009

April 5, 2009

A mug’s game

Do you work in an office? Are you sick of going to get your daily caffeine fix from the dripulator and finding – or rather not finding – your mug. Your pride and joy – perhaps a Dilbert mug with an insightful commentary on office life… Usually it’s because a colleague has pinched it.

Well, with this bad boy the joke is on them. Or the contents of your mug will be if they’re not paying attention. And let’s face it, that’s probably why they pinched it to begin with…

April 5, 2009

Funniest Home Videos: The nursery rhyme edition

Little sister number three said she didn’t mind if I uploaded videos of her. So I have. And here it is. I will probably have to take it down because she’ll ask me to. Sadly there is more embarrassing footage that we’ll be keeping for her 21st.

So cute. But a lesson for parents – taking cute footage of your kids will lead to their older siblings mocking them in their teenage years. Now, I must hop off.

April 5, 2009

AM/PM

I hate when people make a reference to AM or PM when talking about time and then throw in a reference to either morning, evening or night. It’s a redundancy. And a particularly annoying one.

This morning on the ABC it was used over and over again. Like nails on a chalkboard. Warren Boland was giving a teaser to an upcoming segment about businesses opening their doors at 6.30am during winter – convenience stores I think. And in the space of 2 minutes must have referred to “6.30AM in the morning” about 12 times. It drove me to distraction. And now, I’m sharing my rant with you.

If you are going to refer to the time, and add the AM/PM suffix – do not tell me what part of the day that is in. It insults my intelligence. And yours.

That is all.

April 5, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – But Why?

So, Why would I want to rule the world anyway?

Well, a better question to ask might be – why wouldn’t you want to rule the world? That’s a question that’s quicker and easier to answer. There’s absolutely no reason not to want to rule the world, except maybe humility… and not being me. If you’re not me, I don’t really want you to rule the world, I don’t like competition.* I’m only writing this because I want people to understand where I’m coming from and how I achieved my success, preemptively. There are all sorts of reasons for wanting to take over the world, some of them selfish, some of them pure. Here’s a table of different reasons that fall into the two categories:

Selfish Pure
A hunger for power A misplaced desire to make the world a better place
A hunger for money, and power A sense of frustration with the current system of governance and a belief that you truly could do better
A desire to rid the world of certain people types that offend your sensibilities, like ballet dancing Turks, or girls who wear mini-skirts and Ugh Boots. This space left intentionally blank
To finally appease that attention-seeking tendency which had previously led to your dancing on tables at fancy restaurants, fully clothed dancing, during business meetings, get your mind out of the gutter. This space left blank by mistake
Because it’s a cool thing to do and you’re usually pretty bored on Saturdays. This space left blank due to a lack of authorial forethought.

_________________
I’ve never really understood those books by millionaire businessmen explaining their success and how they got there – doesn’t that just create more competition, as we’ve seen from the Microsoft case study, competition is never healthy, monopolies are heaps better for business. Maybe those mega rich businessmen like that Virgin guy, Richard Branson, just put false information in their books to send people down the wrong track, that’s what I’d do, if ever I wrote a book about how I took over the world… I mean, not like this book, but one written after the fact. You know like a biography, probably entitled “I did it my way” or something like that.

April 5, 2009

A bunch of links – April 4, 2009

April 4, 2009

Video kills the local preacher

Well, not literally. But the second post in the debate on video preaching over at toph-online has just been reposted after a hiatus (first post). I wrote a long comment on this post. I was a little bit angry – but it’s a helpful discussion.

Here’s the final summary of my thoughts on the matter on that post. Which you should read – along with the previous posts, and the comments. I think.

“Video preaching driven by the preacher is inherently arrogant, and video preaching driven by adherents is inherently idolatrous.”

As you can see, I’m not a fan. But there’s a lot of interesting points made on both sides of the debate.

April 4, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – Historical figures

Some historical figures worth noting

Julius Caesar
Possibly the most successful ruler never to have been immortalised by a major Hollywood blockbuster, Julius Caesar, the man whose surname became synonymous for king, began the ascent of the Roman empire, ending a period of civil war and beginning a process of expansion that would last for centuries.

Genghis Kahn
The East’s answer to Julius Caesar, part of a long dynasty of Kahn rulers. Lead the Mongols on a path of terror and conquest that even Hitler would have been proud of.

Alexander the Great
Took the Greek civilisation to its highest point, famous for his nice curly hair and military prowess.

Attila the Hun
Lead one of the most successful attacks on the Roman Empire, eventually made peace with them and died of a nose hemorrhage (what kind of warrior dies of a nose hemorrhage, seriously, what a soft way to go, imagine him in a post-life meeting with the other famous military leaders, comparing notes over deaths, no poisonous asp, no sword thrust from behind, a nose hemorrhage, how very lame). Attila, or Hunny to his friends – he didn’t have many friends, is also famous for eating a couple of his sons. True story, if you don’t want a family dynasty that may be an option to consider.

Napoleon
The last great leader of the French, some say Napoleon is one of the greatest military minds ever to have lived. I differ, if he was a great military mind he would have chosen a different nation to lead. I mean he wasn’t even born French, he was born Italian, Italians make much better cannon fodder… I mean soldiers. Armies of Frenchmen are only ever going to fail in the long term. Napoleon’s eventual exile to Elba was inevitable the French were always going to fail. Rumour has it that while in transit to Elba he offered up possibly the world’s coolest palindrome “Able was I ere I saw Elba” he’s worth noting just for that.

Josef Stalin
Showed that it was still in vogue for dictators to have cities named after them. Also helped transform Russia from international also-rans into international heavyweights. He was instrumental in creating the Soviet Union, which became one of the big powers of the twentieth century.

Adolf Hitler
Proved that it was possible to be taken seriously even with a stupid moustache. It helped that he had a large and powerful army behind him. Also showed that the fashions of evil tyrants become unpopular very quickly after their failure – you don’t see many “square button” moustaches around these days do you.

George W. Bush
Proved that being an international powerbroker did not, as previously believed, require any intelligence or leadership ability. It does help to have a powerful father and a paranoid populace to work with. But these are obstacles that can be overcome with enough hard work and a little luck. Also demonstrated that preemptive defense is the best form of attack.

April 4, 2009