Month: October 2009

How to rob a bank – Swedish style

Bank robbers are a misunderstood breed. They’re nothing like the bogans in Two Hands… Hollywood was closer in the movie “How to Rob a Bank…” that I reviewed a while back.

A very professional gang in Sweden did it this way (and got $150 million in the process):

  1. Dressed as ninjas
  2. Stole a helicopter
  3. Abseiled onto the roof of the building – which was essentially a money storage facility, the kind Scrooge McDuck used to bathe in.
  4. Smashed through the glass pyramid on top.
  5. Used explosives to access the money.
  6. Climbed back up the ropes.
  7. Escaped.

But that’s not the best bit. The best bit is that they delayed the pursuers by:

  1. Putting sharp stuff all over the road outside the depot.
  2. Putting a bag marked “Bomb” outside the police station’s helipad, which had to be investigated and the helicopter staff were evacuated.

Two men have since been “questioned” by police, it seems they’re not the actual robbers but may have been involved. The best quote in the story about the robbery is this one from a criminologist:

“They are definitely no amateurs.”

You think?

Why power dynamics are important

If you’re going to stage a protest against any organisation or individual it pays to remember who has the power. Otherwise you might end up like this guy. Who didn’t like that bulldozers were working on a project he opposed, and parked in front of them

Lesson learned.

Status update

I’ve been sick all week with something a bit gastro like. I won’t overshare. This is more to explain the number of posts you’ll be getting today – there’s not much else to do when you’re sitting on the couch. I tried going back to work yesterday, lets just say lunch didn’t work out so well.

The turtles are copping a little bit of the blame because my symptoms look a bit like Salmonella, and turtles are known to carry that bacteria.

I’m thankful that it’s school holidays so Robyn is here to keep me company.

I feel pretty ok, except when:

a) I stand up.
b) I eat.
c) I haven’t taken any anti nausea medication.

That is all.

8-Bit Toast

Mmm, never eat raw toast again. Well, except for the bits you keep artistically bready in order to create this fantastically geeky breakfast art.

Instructions for building your own artistic toast makers can be found here at instructables.

Fandom Facts

I created the St Eutychus fan page on Facebook yesterday and became the number one fan. Literally. I was first. Now there are eight. That’s an 800% increase.

Three in eight fans share my surname.

One in eight fans is named Eutychus.

Currently 25% of my fans are named something piratey (one is named Roger, the other has the surname Davey)

Become a statistic.

It has useful benefits. If I get over 100 fans I can claim Facebook/st-eutychus. You can post links there for me to blog here, and if you do, you’ll win a nice, intangible prize…

True persecution

Atheists have a bit of a siege mentality going on when it comes to being a persecuted minority in the US. But they’re not the hardest done by… that’d be the Jedis…

“The founder of the Jedi religion inspired by the Star Wars films was thrown out of a Tesco supermarket for wearing his distinctive brown hood.”

Imagine if that was someone wearing a burka.

He got upset, and took them to court. Here’s the report.

Tesco’s response was priceless. A prime example of treating a fool according to their folly:

“But Tesco hit back in the spirit of the epic space saga and claimed that the three most well known Jedi Knights in the Star Wars movies – Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker – all appeared in public without their hoods.”

Five essential skills for being a better husband

This is perilous territory, but I’m running out of areas to hand out my wisdom… But two years in I know everything there could possibly be to know… except the parenting stuff… I am being sarcastic by the way…

  1. Learn to say sorry, and mean it.
  2. Figure out the subtle non-nonverbal communication – when your wife says something and means another, or doesn’t say something in an ominous way.
  3. Learn to cook dinner (and to clean up).
  4. Learn your wife’s “love language” it sounds dumb, but this was a pretty helpful book.
  5. Learn that when your wife comes to you with a problem she doesn’t want an immediate solution, but rather someone who’ll listen.

Five essential skills for the modern worker

I don’t really like giving advice where I’m not qualified. But I’m Gen Y. So I know everything about work. Here are my five essential ways to get ahead in the workplace…

  1. Communicate better. Learn to do public speaking – it’s invaluable in meetings and day to day interactions to be able to confidently put forward your views. Learn to write in plain language. Keep things simple. Don’t waste people’s time.
  2. Learn to say no to things you can’t do – outsource. Paying an expert is often the best decision you can make.
  3. Learn the 80/20 rule. Be prepared not to be perfect in order to do more stuff.
  4. Keep up to date with new developments in your field. Read the right blogs and magazines, keep in touch with technology, find new ways of doing things and suggest them to others.
  5. Learn a little bit about desktop publishing and graphic design. The basics are easy.

Five essential skills for trainee geeks

I’m not sure if I’m a fully fledged geek or not… but here are five areas I think are essentials…

  1. Learn to put together wires and boxes (like an amp, TV etc) – particularly learn about cable varieties and all the terminology involved in audio and visual stuff.
  2. Learn to put together a computer – learn what the parts do from the CPU to the fans, and everything in between.
  3. Develop an obsession – past the point of normality – for me it’s coffee. Once that obsession has gone past normal points pick something new.
  4. Learn as many subsets of jargon (or niche languages) as possible, particularly acronyms.
  5. Get a multitool, like a leatherman.

Five essential skills for men

As a follow up to my last post – here are five skills that are almost essential for successful manliness…

  1. Learn to BBQ – especially steak.
  2. Learn to kill bugs/mice/pests.
  3. Learn to buy flowers without thinking it’s a waste of money.
  4. Learn to read manuals.
  5. Learn to cook breakfast.

Again, feel free to share your own “skillz” in the comments…

Five not so essential skills

Kottke has a list of essential skills for living (ages ago, I’m clearing out my queue)… you should read it.

Here’s my list of not so common skillz that I’ve decided are important.

  1. Write a haiku – they come in handy for classy SMS invitations. Limericks are also useful.
  2. Make dangerous things that impress children – glove guns are a classic.
  3. Pull apart a piece of technology, try to get it working again, then turn it into a piece of art.
  4. Learn to tell dad jokes – this is an important skill – I don’t recommend starting with the tractor joke, but learn it to punish people.
  5. Get a party trick. You never know when you might need to save your life by performing some sort of miraculous and spontaneous piece of entertainment.

Share your non-essential skillz in the comments.

How to choose your next favourite band

With a quick and easy flow chart… (some words may slightly offend)…

From here.

Human Tetris

These guys get style points for getting the piece shapes right, and getting the theme music spot on too.

Thanks to Scooter, whose blog seems defunct so I won’t link to it in order not to get your hopes up.

Spellbinding art

I love books. The idea of defacing them kind of hurts… but maybe if you find an old copy of something atrocious like Joel Osteen’s “Your Best Life Now” it would be worth turning it into something truly wonderful and edifying… like these sculptures that were used in an advertising campaign in Prague…

I love gangster books. Both novels and the “true” confessions of mob informers who use their tell alls to fund life on the run. I was going to write a gangster novel once. Then I got distracted.

By medieval books… I love medieval books – all those swords…

But swords get tired pretty quickly… what really gets exciting is undersea monsters… and pirate ships…

There are heaps of other creative book based artworks here. Well worth your time.

Pet peeves

Losing a family pet is never easy. I should know. I once had about nine pet birds die in one day, and then there was the night of the long flush this year when I said goodbye to four fish in once morning. I can understand wanting to preserve the memory of the good times shared with a pet dog through the miracle of taxidermy….

What I can’t understand is why you’d then try to sell your dead dog when you move house…