Month: July 2009

Horsing around

I hate Nickelback. More than I hate U2. They are the world’s most painful band.

I was at the pub the other night with Tim and Aaran for trivia. There was a Nickelback had a video clip playing. Luckily there was no sound on. But the band have this odd habit of looking like they’re riding horses when they’re singing.

Microsoft, on the other hand, apparently love Nickelback – and they think you do too.

They want you to clog up your computer with their stupid product – and a stupid song by a stupid band. What an incentive.

July 3, 2009

A novel solution

I started writing a novel once – well, a few times – and one of the problems I came across was settling on names for characters. This is why I think many authors stick to historic fiction. Sadly, others have issues coming up with the right plot devices – this will be a problem no more thanks to this great character reference card…

July 3, 2009

2B or not to Bee

Sculptures made from lego. Awesome. I remember when I was young going to big lego expos in shopping centres. These are cool.

There are more impressive sculptures that didn’t fit with my clever title.

Found here.

July 3, 2009

Rubikcubism

Here’s a follow up to that Rubik’s Cube art post from the other day. It’s pretty incredible. According to the video this kind of artistic endeavour is called rubikcubism.

The video was in the original post – but something didn’t quite work and it’s worthy of its own post. Apologies if you’ve seen it already.


TOP 10
by extermitent

July 3, 2009

New kids on the block

Have you seen that video of all those prisoners doing the Thriller dance? It’s really moving and emotional and stuff… well, this is better.

July 3, 2009

Pac Mini

Pacman gear doesn’t get much classier than a painted Mini Cooper.

July 3, 2009

Review: How To Rob A Bank

The full title – How To Rob A Bank: And Ten Tips To Actually Get Away With It.

Coming in at the perfect length (an hour and 12 minutes) this bank robbery caper would have been incredibly cheap to produce – it’s the movie Phone Booth would have been if it was a bank robbery comedy, only it’s got the recently departed David Carradine as the mastermind on the other end of the phone rather than Keither Sutherland (thanks Kutz).

It’s clever, entertaining, and beautifully shot. The script keeps things moving, the jokes are well executed. It’s not long so it’s worth a watch.

The ten tips – for those wondering… (with some slight language modifications)…

  1. Decide to rob a bank.
  2. Have a plan.
  3. Have a back-up plan.
  4. Establish clear communications.
  5. Choose your partners carefully.
  6. Expect the unexpected.
  7. Stuff happens.
  8. Don’t get greedy.
  9. Remember, stuff happens.
  10. Hang up and know when to walk away

July 3, 2009

Fully sick

I’m at home with “man flu” today, and it’s school holidays, and our friend Trav is here to visit. So we’re watching movies on the couch. Stay tuned for reviews.

July 3, 2009

The importance of clear communication

Bagging out U2 on a public forum had some unexpected consequences. I’m not talking about the outcry from Christians keen to hang their hats on the Bono coathook of public Christianity.

No. It’s changed the way I engage in conversation with my wife. Now, if she says “I love you” – I say “I love you also” lest I be branded a hypocrite.

July 2, 2009

A bunch of links – July 2, 2009

July 2, 2009

Who wants to be a millionaire

I mentioned my impending economic influx the other day. I have, in the last three days – won a Chinese Lottery (courtesy of Toyota), been approached by a man from Ghana (who I’ve since spoken to on the phone a couple of times) to take care of some mysterious money, and been offered a share of $15 million from a merchant banker in the UK.

Good times.

I am determined to get my John 3:16 photo by any means – so I also created a new email account and went back to one of the scammers with an offer to take part in a global photography shoot for a Christian organisation.

Here’s what I sent to the British banker…

1st Email

Thankyou for your email dated Monday 29/06/2009.

Unfortunately, at this time, I am unable to help out with your transaction.

I am far too busy with my business to be able to help at this time.

I am busy with a major global contract – and you may actually be able to assist me. I have been contracted to find appropriate modelling talent from around the world to take part in a photo shoot for a major Christian coalition. The budget is large and models will be paid 10,000 GBP for the ongoing rights to the photos.

I am looking for people from countries around the world to participate – would you know any suitable talent in Scotland?

Please ask them to contact me directly. They do not have to be traditional "model" type people – we want, wherever possible, to feature normal people.
Please advise if you may know of anybody.
Regards,

Nathan

2nd Email

Hi Steven, I just wanted to touch base with you after the email I sent you a couple of days ago. As I mentioned, I am looking for people to appear in a photo shoot I am conducting around the globe. I may not have been completely clear with my instructions or details.

We want to produce a montage of images featuring faces of people from around the globe holding placards featuring popular bible verses. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe the Bible – we just want a mix of nationalities and demographics.

We are paying 10,000 pounds to each model for the image rights and ongoing commercial reproduction of these images. If you are interested could you send a sample photo to this address including yourself holding such a placard.

Feel free to pass it on to your friends and family. We are looking for many models so your assistance would be appreciated. We would be happy to consider a finders fee.

Regards,

Nathan

I’ve engaged with correspondence with him from a new email account I set up for that very purpose. He has responded there, but not to my requests. Curious.

The Toyota deal comes with a free car – but I also have to set up a bank account in China – this will no doubt be where I have to fork out dollars.

The UN also contacted me about some sort of payment – but the account belonging to the UN staff member has since been closed. He did, however, ask me to contact a Reverend. So I did.

Dear Reverend Hedges,
Greetings in the name of the Lord.
Our friend Captain James Williams has contacted me regarding the release of funds owing in my name.
He has asked me to contact you with some odd details. I trust that you, as an ordained minister of the Lord, will be able to allay my concerns when it comes to the details requested.
Why do you require information about my home equity situation, why is a PO Box not acceptable? These seem like strange requests.
I am confident that representatives of the UN will always act in good faith.
I look forward to hearing from you so that I can conclude this transaction as soon as possible.
The money will be most welcome by the Christian charities I intend to support.
I trust, brother, that you will respond promptly.

I will share my adventures with my “phone-a-friend” – Dr Paul – upon their conclusion. I’ve wasted about 15 minutes of his time and hopefully cost him some telephone credit in the process. I have asked him to provide a John 3:16 photo.

But my friend Mr Chan has to provide something slightly different.

Thank you for your email. Things are much clearer now. I look forward to receiving the funds – what makes you think that having received the totality of the funds I will pay you your share?

That seems very trusting.

Do we need to enter some sort of contractual agreement to ensure I don’t keep all of it?

I would like to receive some sort of evidence that you are "on the level" – perhaps a photo of you holding a note to me would be appropriate, along with a copy of some identification. I believe this is the best way to approach "proof".

Two photos that corroborate your identity along with something that proves you are responding to my request (the note) seems like the easiest way to prove your identity.
It needs to be a photo that you won’t be able to find readily on the Internet. So the note should contain something that would only have been produced at my request.

I watched Transformers 2 last night. Perhaps you could hold a sign that says "Robot in Disguise".

I look forward to receiving your next correspondence. Please forward through the requirements for setting up an account with a private bank.

I’m hopeful the Transformers theme will be easier to accommodate for these unbelieving heathen.

July 2, 2009

A bunch of links – July 1, 2009

July 1, 2009

Mr Fix It

If you’re handy(wo)manning skills aren’t up to scratch and you need some inspiration check out There, I fixed it. It’s truly inspirational.

July 1, 2009

Happy New Year

The new financial year starts today. You’re no doubt all very excited.

I am. I made some new financial year resolutions. They’re the only resolutions worth keeping (and I’ve managed twice in the past).

This year I’m giving up fast food and soft drink. Take that calories.

I thought about giving up beer and coffee too – but then I’d be grumpy all the time.

I did soft drink in 06/07 and fast food in 07/08 – and nothing in 08/09 – so this year is a combined effort.

Have you made any? Financial year resolutions are awesome.

July 1, 2009

Free thinking

Andrew and I have continued to discuss the implications of my “open source” Christian music idea.

Clearly both sides of the argument contain truths – particularly when applied to Christian music. Songwriters want their ideas spread as widely as possible, while they also need to be paid to write if they do it full time. There’s another paradigm to consider when it comes to whether or not God “owns” work produced through spiritual gifts. Then he’d own the intellectual property, and the copyright.

It’s part of a much bigger and broader argument about open source that’s going on in the upper echelons of thoughtful journalism – and a lot of the discussion is about the future of journalism and paid media in the context of the free media offered by the web.

Malcolm Gladwell – one of my favourite authors is engaged in a debate with Wired Magazine editor, and author of a book called “Free”, Chris Anderson.

Anderson wrote his book on the premise that “ideas and information” want to be “free”… that’s a nutshell summary.

Here’s Anderson’s take on music and the Internet as quoted in Gladwell’s review of the book (which was negative)…

“In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.” To musicians who believe that their music is being pirated, Anderson is blunt. They should stop complaining, and capitalize on the added exposure that piracy provides by making money through touring, merchandise sales, and “yes, the sale of some of [their] music to people who still want CDs or prefer to buy their music online.”

It’s a great article. Here’s another interesting passage from Anderson’s book, again quoted by Gladwell…

“Anderson describes an experiment conducted by the M.I.T. behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of “Predictably Irrational.” Ariely offered a group of subjects a choice between two kinds of chocolate—Hershey’s Kisses, for one cent, and Lindt truffles, for fifteen cents. Three-quarters of the subjects chose the truffles. Then he redid the experiment, reducing the price of both chocolates by one cent. The Kisses were now free. What happened? The order of preference was reversed. Sixty-nine per cent of the subjects chose the Kisses. The price difference between the two chocolates was exactly the same, but that magic word “free” has the power to create a consumer stampede. Amazon has had the same experience with its offer of free shipping for orders over twenty-five dollars. The idea is to induce you to buy a second book, if your first book comes in at less than the twenty-five-dollar threshold. And that’s exactly what it does. In France, however, the offer was mistakenly set at the equivalent of twenty cents—and consumers didn’t buy the second book. “From the consumer’s perspective, there is a huge difference between cheap and free,” Anderson writes. “Give a product away, and it can go viral. Charge a single cent for it and you’re in an entirely different business. . . . The truth is that zero is one market and any other price is another.”

Gladwell’s critique cites YouTube as an example.

“Why is that? Because of the very principles of Free that Anderson so energetically celebrates. When you let people upload and download as many videos as they want, lots of them will take you up on the offer. That’s the magic of Free psychology: an estimated seventy-five billion videos will be served up by YouTube this year. Although the magic of Free technology means that the cost of serving up each video is “close enough to free to round down,” “close enough to free” multiplied by seventy-five billion is still a very large number. A recent report by Credit Suisse estimates that YouTube’s bandwidth costs in 2009 will be three hundred and sixty million dollars. In the case of YouTube, the effects of technological Free and psychological Free work against each other.”

Chris Anderson has since responded to Gladwell’s criticism on his blog. He uses blogging and bloggers getting book deals as a case study. Interesting stuff and worth a read. Seth Godin – the “guru” – has chimed in on the subject declaring Anderson right and Gladwell wrong. The Times Online’s tech blog predictably took the side of established journalism and declared Gladwell the winner.

July 1, 2009