Nathan Campbell – Page 233

Overthinking box office figures

I’ve recently discovered “Overthinking It” a brilliant blog specialising in over analysis of pop culture.

They don’t like Avatar much over there (and I must confess I still haven’t seen it).

But they make a good point about how unfair it is to measure movies by box office spend:

In 1997, I paid $7 to see Titanic.

In 2009, I paid $15 to see Avatar.

Even adjusted for inflation, this is insane.

I tend to like densely populated places, so these were both fairly high prices for movie tickets at the time, and location isn’t a major contributor toward the change in ticket price. Yes, I saw Avatar in 3D, but the 3D is there specifically to raise the price of the ticket, not because of the higher costs. It’s price inflation disguised as a “value-add.” For the sake of box office numbers, that doesn’t really matter, now does it?

Furthermore, according to the World Bank:

In 1997, combined global gross domestic product was $30.1 trillion in nominal terms.

In 2008 (the latest year of available data), it was $60.6 trillion.

So, between Titanic and Avatar, the price of my ticket more than doubled, and the size of the global economy also more than doubled. Talk about a fair fight.

But, to offer a little more insight, from the same source:

In 1997, the gross domestic product of China in dollar terms was $953 billion.

In 2008, it was $4.33 trillion.

That’s an increase of 354%.

January 14, 2010

15 steps to better procrastination

People often ask me how I have so much time to blog, or can justify the time I spend doing so.

The truth is, I’m a procrastinator. Right now I have a newsletter to send out and a booking form to build. But there is no deadline pressure. Not for another hour or so. So I need to fill the time with meaninglessness in order to create that pressure. Sure, I have a to do list filled with other meaningless tasks and I could create the deadline pressure by creating a faux deadline. But then I’d finish earlier and have nothing to do.

Steve Kryger has produced a list of 15 tips to help you not to procrastinate, (H/T DaveMiers.com). I’m going to be counterproductive. Here are 15 tips to guide your efforts in procrastination.

How to procrastinate while feeling productive

Read some articles about how to do what you’re doing better – Consider this professional development and research. At the same time. Also click through to any other links you find that seem interesting.
Tidy your desk – This one is also on Steve’s list – but I use it to avoid doing the jobs I am avoiding doing. And who knows what you might discover going through your physical inbox and your files. Maybe there’ll be another task that you can procrastinate on.
Write a really long list of things to do to achieve your goal, and then your next four or five goals – Lists just feel so productive. And they make your tasks much more concrete. This helps you to avoid doing them.
Learn how to write your goals in other languages – Constant learning is the best way to avoid constant doing.
Visit Facebook, Twitter and MySpace – Ask your friends how to achieve your goals better. Their advice could save you valuable minutes in the long term.
Participate in community – While you’re on Facebook check out your friend’s photos and comment on their walls. It is all about community.
Have a quick game of Tetris – It really gets the creative juices flowing.
Blog – Write a post about “how to” solve your issue quoting your friends and the articles you read.
Comment elsewhere – Encourage other people to write more stuff that helps you. This is like a self fulfilling prophecy of procrastination. The more stuff there is to read through in order to find what you’re after the less time you need to spend doing stuff. Increase the noise to signal ratio. That way when you find something relevant it’s a real triumph.
Engage with differing ideas – Find something online you disagree with and get in an argument.
Get amongst real people – Walk around the office and play a prank on somebody.
Spend 80% of your time developing efficiencies – This is my own personal 80/20 rule. Everybody loves an 80/20 rule. It justifies spending less time doing stuff. The more time you spend thinking about how you do work the less time you actually have to spend doing it.
Make sure the job still needs doing – Procrastination is a filter to avoid doing unnecessary tasks. Not doing unnecessary tasks is much more efficient than doing them and finding out they weren’t needed. If nobody has noticed that you haven’t done the thing you were asked to do, it probably didn’t need doing.
Make sure the deadline still stands – Perhaps the job wasn’t as important as it first seemed. If that’s the case put it down the list and start procrastinating about something else.
Delegate – Ask someone else (preferably a known procrastinator) to produce an integral part of your work. Then their lack of progress is a perfect excuse for your lack of progress.

Enjoy. This should provide eight or nine spare hours in the work day.

Bonus tip: Subscribe to hundreds of blogs (including mine (subscription link)) in Google Reader. And make sure you have no unread posts before you start the day.

January 14, 2010

Pat Robertson is an idiot who needs to read the Bible

It takes a natural disaster to bring out the best and worst in Christianity. Pat Robertson is one of those insidious televangelists who will jump on any bandwagon in order to promote his gospel – not the gospel – his gospel.

So it doesn’t surprise me to see him trying to capitalise on a terrible tragedy (the horrific earthquake in Haiti).

Here’s what Jesus says about this sort of situation in Luke (12 and 13)…

54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?

57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? 58 As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. 59 I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.[c]”

Luke 13

1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

January 14, 2010

A taxing issue

Feel free to dismiss this post as an anti-U2 rant simply designed to sling mud at the choir boy reputation that the band enjoys in Christian culture.

But I think this is pretty funny…

Bono, like many other wealthy celebrities, tries to avoid paying tax by using an off shore tax haven. But what about all those tax dollars that are directed towards foreign aid you say?

“Tax avoidance and tax evasion costs the impoverished world at least 160 million US dollars every year. This is money urgently required to bring people out of poverty.

“U2 is just one part of the problem. This is a much wider and systemic problem in our global financial system. Every company and individual has the responsibility to pay the right amount of tax.”

Now this probably pales in comparison to the contribution Bono has made, and I don’t want to rob him of the credit he is due.

But Bono, with shades of Metallica’s anti-napster campaign is crusading for the poor musicians suggesting that governments should monitor the internet in order to prevent file sharing. While pointing the finger firmly at the evil Internet Service Providers.

A decade’s worth of music file-sharing and swiping has made clear that the people it hurts are the creators — in this case, the young, fledgling songwriters who can’t live off ticket and T-shirt sales like the least sympathetic among us — and the people this reverse Robin Hooding benefits are rich service providers, whose swollen profits perfectly mirror the lost receipts of the music business.

January 14, 2010

Apocalypse Now? Or not yet

Six days later debate still rages (though slower now) on the Friendly Atheist thread (I even scored a second post about my comments that was actually quite flattering… check it out)… here’s a testimonial from the author of the original post – it probably gives a more balanced view than the quotes I mined here.

First of all, I want to thank Nathan for his continued patience and politeness in comments. Yes, we disagree with him – vehemently on some issues – but I’m impressed that the comments have stayed mostly productive and substantive.

Fellow commenter, Wayne, has raised an interesting interpretation of the mission of Jesus and the kingdom he proclaimed. His comments alone make that thread worth reading. He is singularly the most interesting commenter I’ve ever come across there. He is prepared, it seems, to not completely dismiss the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ teaching. He just interprets them in an interesting way.

He introduced his views like this:

You comment that you follow the teachings of Jesus. I assume that, like most Christians, you consider him the Son of God. I submit to you that, on the contrary, he was a human being who was an apocalypticist who was preaching that God was about to arrive in his kingdom and that the people must prepare themselves. In Mark 9:1, Jesus states “Truly I tell you, some of you standing here will not taste death before they have seen the Kingdom of God having come in power. And Mark 13:30 Truly I tell you, this generation (i.e., presumably, the one he was addressing) will not pass away before all these things take place. In Mark 14:62 Truly I tell you, You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. In Mathew 16:27-28 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels: and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
…
I am a former Christian who had questions that religion could not answer, such as why Jesus would be preaching fervently for the people to prepare themselves for the coming Kingdom when it wasn’t supposed to happen for millenniums later. It simply made no sense. I’ve since realize the problem after much research from non religious sources, that it was actually supposed to happen back then, but it didn’t, which blew Christianity out of the water for me.

Then he brought up this theory on the promise to David…

Here is something to cogitate over. Yahweh made a covenant with the House of David that David’s descendants would hold the reigns of power over Israel for ever. Let me remind you that this is from a god who is all knowing. Well, the leader of a nation, I forget which, removed the ruling Davidian and replaced him with a nonDavidian. So much for an all knowing god.

Like most Christians I think Jesus was talking about his kingdom coming at the crucifixion (and resurrection). I’m a 2 Corinthians 1:20 man myself…

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

One thing I hate in these arguments – and it’s similar to Ben’s disdain for experts – is when people quote “scholars” as though an issue is decided. Like this quote from Wayne (who really did have an interesting hermeneutic, and one I hadn’t really encountered before. I knew it existed, I’d just never met anybody who bought it):

“How can we look at the Old Testament and take it seriously? Scholars have determined that Abraham was simply a legend and didn’t exist. Also, the book of Joshua tells a powerful tale of conquest, supported by a God who showed no respect for most of the Holy Land’s existing inhabitants, however scholars have determined it is not history and it never was.”

Oh yeah, and anything in the Bible that contradicts his interpretations of other bits of the Bible is invalid…

Unfortunately, scholars are convinced that Paul did not write the books of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus (called the “Pastoral” epistles, because they deal with how these pastors should oversee their churches.) So this passage you quoted has no validity.

When I objected to his “scholars”, I got this response:

When it comes to religion, I will pick the majority of scholars over the majority of Christians anytime, especially when their interpretation makes more sense.

I decided that Wayne had been pretty heavily influenced by the previously featured Bart Erhman… I found, and posted, this quote from a scholar about Ehrman’s “scholarship”…

A criticism of Erhman from an NT lecturer:

It is mystifying however why he would attempt to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted which frankly reflect no in-depth interaction at all with exegetes, theologians, and even most historians of the NT period of whatever faith or no faith at all. A quick perusal of the footnotes to this book, reveal mostly cross-references to Ehrman’s earlier popular works, with a few exceptions sprinkled in—for example Raymond Brown and E.P Sanders, the former long dead, the latter long retired. What is especially telling and odd about this is Bart does not much reflect a knowledge of the exegetical or historical study of the text in the last thirty years. It’s as if he is basing his judgments on things he read whilst in Princeton Seminary. And that was a long time ago frankly.

Then another commenter took me to task for bringing Ehrman into the discussion. How dare I be so presumptuous. And Wayne linked me to this friend of his, where he’d commented with similar views (almost word for word) in the past… and credited Erhman. Priceless.

“I was originally Christian, but had too many questions like why did Jesus preach back then that you must prepare yourself for the coming Kingdom if it wasn’t going to happen until millenniums later. Or why did Jesus tell his disciples that some of them would still be standing when his Father would arrive in glory in his kingdom, if it wasn’t supposed to happen then? Ministers could never give me an answer, but Bart Erhman did.”

Perhaps this post will be enough to bring Wayne here to continue this discussion. Lets see. It’s certainly the rambliest thing I’ve posted for a while.

January 13, 2010

Making headlines today… redux

I haven’t quite been able to shake my SMH addiction.

Today’s featured story bar has an eery little look at degenerate 60s rockers with their much younger (and prettier) partners… Surely they did this on purpose.

January 13, 2010

Can’t find your Bible – now you have an excuse

Finding time to read the Bible just for reading the Bible’s sake can be tough. Especially with so much good stuff on TV. But if you’ve ever wanted an excuse not to read the Bible… I’ve got your back. Get one of these camouflage outdoor Bibles. Throw out all your others. Then leave it sitting somewhere in the great outdoors – and you’ll never find it again.

The blurb:

We carry the most popular camouflage Bibles on the market today. Ever been on a tree stand, or a mountain top or stream and wished you had you Bible along for meditation? Makes a perfect gift for the Christian Outdoorsman.

Need proof that this is an essential item to add to your Bear Grylls (who really is just that travel writer from Black Books) inspired adventures. Here’s video of someone reading one in the Amazon (the world famous rainforest not the online bookstore).

The Outdoor Bible in the Amazon from Bardin & Marsee on Vimeo.

If you haven’t clicked the link – you should – it’s to a site called “The Christian Outdoorsman“. It sells quality “Jesus Junk” for the nature lover/hunter.

You can even get this shirt that uses a proof text about Deers panting for water to somehow justify hunting…

Alternatively, if you do want to read the Bible – get it on your iPhone. Nobody in their right mind loses an iPhone.

January 13, 2010

Gold star design

Well. Not really. Though I do like the everything old is new again white look I’ve got going on now… if you’re a feed reader and haven’t checked it out – swing by.

You might also notice (though probably not – I never look there) that my sidebar (over on the far right now has a little thing called “Starred”. At the moment it just features posts I’ve personally given five stars. But you can join the fun.

All my posts have a star rating feature. Vote down my five starred ones and start giving out actual stars to good posts and those posts in the sidebar will change. We’re all about reader interaction here at St. Eutychus.

While I’m on the subject of reader interaction – if anybody wants to supply some guest posts about anything that loosely meets the categories already existing – just let me know. Perhaps you’re a professional animator and you’d like to talk about drawing, perhaps you’re a person who designs cool stuff you think is worthy of featuring in the Curiosities column, perhaps you’d like to review books or you’ve found cool stuff around the web, perhaps you’re theologically minded and want to write some great arguments criticising atheism (or another batch of great articles), perhaps you’re my little sister and you already have an account and could post funny puns whenever you want…

Also, while I’m just shamelessly self promoting and writing a post with almost no purpose… are you on my blogroll? Am I on yours? If you’re not on mine and I read you (or I should) tell me. If I am on yours – check to see if it’s going to the old nathanintownsville address – that no longer works.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled fodder.

January 13, 2010

Storage Story

I have more storage capacity on my keyring than the first five or six computers we owned combined.

Here’s a nice storage infographic from geekologie.

January 12, 2010

Shirt of the Day: Hulk it up

Want to look tough and scare off some weak kneed lilly livered opponent?

You should get one of these pre-perforated Hulkamaniac singlets so you can psychologically cut loose on just about anybody.

Sadly they don’t seem to actually exist…

Via here, from here (in Russian).

January 12, 2010

YouTube Tuesday: Puntastic

The Governator has been playing with words for many years – so it should come as no surprise that he issues such classy vetoes.

Here is a selection of puns from his bad guy in whichever Batman movie it was that Mr Freeze appeared in – they all look the same to me…

The tags on this post indicate I actually do know which Batman movie it was in…

January 12, 2010

The Facebook booby trap

Am I the only person (not just male surely) who is sick of the Facebook phenomena of females posting the colour of their underwear as their Facebook status.

Yes, for the slow people, that is why you have been seeing colours as statuses.

I hate breast cancer. Everybody does. Nobody is unaware of it. And seriously. Posting a colour to raise awareness does nothing for the cause.

Has anybody been compelled to make a donation to breast cancer research as a result of the colour “blue” or “chartreuse” (whatever that is).

I know many of you reading this have taken part in the exercise. And I understand your motivation. But either you’re responding to a friend telling you what is going on – or the originally circulated spam that read:

Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!

Fun? Posting colours and keeping secrets is fun? No. It’s childish.

Here’s a more scathing analysis from Jezebel…

But what good has it really done for breast cancer awareness? Does anyone on Facebook really not know about breast cancer to the point where someone posting “purple lace!” and eight dudes responding, “Ooh, hot, lol” is really doing to anything to really help the cause in any possible way? If anything, the constant sexualization of and cutesy-poo approach to breast cancer pushes people to take it less seriously. As Tracy Clark-Flory of Broadsheet notes: “This bra color movement seems a similarly desperate attempt to get guys to simply give a crap about breast cancer by making it sexy and flirtatious, which I find not only embarrassing to women but insulting to men.”

And, you know, spreading awareness of an issue that statistically is much more predominant in women by keeping the men out of it… that’s a good idea.

Bollocks.

You don’t see guys running boxers or briefs social networking campaigns to raise awareness for prostate cancer. No. We grow moustaches and collect money.

It seems equally stupid. But there’s a difference. Movember raised awareness and almost $20 million (in Australia – and about the same world wide) for the cause.

A public awareness campaign with no call to action is just stupid. Having a strong call to action is the key to any marketing or public relations campaign. A call to action says: “if you care about this, do this”. Marketing that says “care about this” serves no purpose but to get people to care about an issue they probably already care about. A public awareness campaign where the call to action is “keep this a secret from the guys” is even dumber.

This “Bra Colour” Facebook campaign is stupid, juvenile, and almost completely pointless. Unless all the outcry about how pointless it is leads to some people actually donating.

And I’m proud to be a part of that.

If you really want to make a difference regarding Breast Cancer then do this:

Help the National Breast Cancer Foundation to fund research into the prevention, treatment and cure of breast cancer. (If you would like to set up an ongoing donation, please call 02 9299 4090.)

Click here to donate online

January 12, 2010

Would you like caffeine with that?

You’ll never catch me drinking decaf. But it’s not because I drink coffee for the caffeine hit. You can get caffeine from so many other places that it’s just not worth the effort of drinking a less than optimal coffee.

If you’ve been reading for a while you would have caught this infographic about how healthy different drinks are for you based on sugar content.

Here’s a complementary (and complimentary – as in free, not as in it says nice things about you) infographic that gives you the caffeine content.

January 12, 2010

How to know if nobody likes you

The word “douche” traditionally means something very different to the current pejorative definition given below. I would, perhaps, not use it. If I were you.

“The term refers to a person with a variety of negative qualities, specifically arrogance and engaging in obnoxious and/or irritating actions without malicious intent.”

I suggest redeeming this flowchart by replacing douchebag with the more culturally appropriate (from an Australian perspective) “tool”… at least that’s how Joel described the type of character here.

And so, I give you, via “bits and pieces” the “Are you a Tool” flowchart…

For Ben – who is back blogging and has decided he likes the third person.

P.S. Ben is not a tool (unless he fails the flowchart test). And I am glad he is back blogging.

P.P.S. Oh yeah, if you got here because you googled “how to know if nobody likes you” then you probably should do the flowchart, and if you pass it, you should probably consider that actually needing to ask that question is probably a sign that you’re doing something wrong.

January 12, 2010

Typesetting Acronyms

Should you set acronyms in small caps like some style guides suggest?

Computer says no.

This nonsense, promulgated by snobs like that bore Bringhurst who have not read anything written after Jane Austen croaked, ostensibly improves typographic colour. What it actually does is inhibit reading: Acronyms are not regular words. All-small-caps setting fools the reader into thinking an acronym is a real world. That discomfort you feel is a reverse fixation you underwent trying to reread the word.

This was always a bad idea, but it’s much worse with abbreviations that mix case (ATypI) and, indeed, with alphanumeric abbreviations (H1N1). Then what happens when you pluralize one of those? Plural s is almost exactly the height of the small caps.

But wait. You say. Acronyms are initialisations designed to be read as words.

Or there’s the equally nonsensical habit of using small caps solely for word-pronounceable acronyms, some of which are mated to acronyms you read letter by letter.

Like this example:

The conclusion…

Use of small caps for acronyms and abbreviations is a surefire indication your compositor is a snob. Stop acting like acronyms are dirt you need to sweep under the rug.

January 12, 2010