Consciousness – Page 48

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

Funniest home videos

I spent last Saturday morning going through some old family home videos ahead of dad’s 50th birthday (on April 12). I have to edit them down into a nice little family video production. Dad has set the video production bar pretty high – as you’ll see on his design4church blog. Here’s the MPC promo video for this year’s “Rechurch” theme…

Oh the shame. My parents recorded some very cruel things that will no doubt come back to haunt my two sisters who have not yet celebrated 21st birthdays. Tomorrow I will resume this task.

I wonder if there are ethical problems with posting videos of your younger siblings doing embarrassing things on YouTube without their consent and many years after the fact?

Would it balance it out if I posted skeletons from my own closet? Like the matinée performance of my starring role in our fifth grade (at school not a comment on quality) musical performance of Oliver.

April 3, 2009

Finally

My iPhone has arrived.

Thanks to the power of persuasion and a sympathetic employer.

April 3, 2009

Kick out the jam

I’ve mentioned GraphJam before. It’s a fun site. It has funny graphs. Now it has a graph that I made. I’m unsure whether I think it’s funny or not. Making graphs for GraphJam proved to be particularly easy. You can do it here. If you do, and send me a copy, I’ll post it under mine. We’ll have a GraphJam jam. If you made a graph about jam we could have a jam GraphJam jam.

April 3, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – The Power of the Dollar

A Modern Day Example – The Power of the Dollar

As time went by, and society progressed, it became apparent to those seeking unimaginable power that the killing of one’s enemies was something that was generally frowned upon. These would be power brokers were forced to look for new ways to demonstrate their dominance over the common man. They didn’t have to look far to find a common currency of power. In fact they only had to look to currency. Power is, as we’ve all no doubt heard by now, money.*

If we take for example, a company, who for the sake of this text I shall just call Microsoft, we see the archetypal modern day superpower. These days the best way to gain unlimited power without raising any significant opposition is to do it legally, corporately and globally.

The story of Microsoft is one that is both inspiring and interesting. Basically, Microsoft started out as a dream in the heads of two young university students who had nothing really going for them. No social skills, no interpersonal communication skills, they weren’t good looking, they were (probably) on the university chess team. In fact all they had going for them was intelligence and a desire to succeed. They saw a hole in the market that they believed they could fill and they filled it. So a worldwide corporate empire is not out of the reach of the ordinary man, or woman.

However, there are plenty of other books and websites for those of you who want to take over the world by making lots of money. This book deals more with the conquest based method of expansion. Even there we can learn something from Microsoft, every time any significant opposition, or competition as the business minded prefer to label it, Microsoft got rid of them. Admittedly the getting rid of usually involved buying the company at a fair price but the result was the same, the other company no longer existed. In this day and age you’re better off buying your enemies into submission.

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*Therefore by syllogism – time is also power, power is a root of evil and power makes the world go round. In fact if you think of any sentence containing the word money, you can pretty much always replace it with the word power, for example, the ABBA song Money would be called Power and go something like this – power, power, power must be funny in a rich man’s world. Again by syllogism we see that if power “must be funny” then power is funny. Neat hey.

April 3, 2009

Scales of justice

Another cool idea from Ji Lee.

These could only be helpful in my quest to earn an Xbox. I’m 15% of the way there I think. Last time I weighed in. Just 8.5kg to go.

April 2, 2009

Redesign

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.

You’ll also notice that I’ve moved to a two column design and now my much more frequently posted “oddities” from around the interwebs will appear on the right hand side only. Keeping the more serious stuff on the left.

This is because my wife told me she was sick of trawling through the odd bits to get to the good bits. Other people no doubt only read me for the odd bits so hopefully I’m keeping you all satisfied.

April 2, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – Modern Examples

The rule of the church

Empires built around the strength of a nation are only half the story when it comes to effective global powers. For an empire to stretch across borders it needs to appeal to the hearts, nay the souls, of the larger global population. For the best example of an ideology driven empire you need look no further than the papal rule during the Crusades. The Crusades, or the Holy Wars, involved armies from many nations, often nations who had unresolved conflicts with one another, uniting under the common banner of the church and marching on the infidels. Nothing has the power to encourage violent passion in a man like a good bout of religious fervour. The guarantee by the church that any sins a man committed while on the Crusade would be forgiven was just an added bonus.

For many years the nations, who could justifiably claim to be the world powers of the time, had their political agenda dictated by the church. The church even tried to dictate the personal lives of monarchs, King Henry the 8th being a prime example.

Religion is still a powerful tool for world domination today. Unity that stretches across national borders is perhaps the most effective way to establish an empire. However, since God is probably not in your pocket as you seek to become a global leader you may have to look past religion for something to forge this unity.

The Aeroplane Flies High

As far as military technology went there were very few developments until the early 1900s. Weaponry until that time had developed along a theme rather than anything new being created. Chariots became tanks, bows and arrows became guns and swords gradually became obsolete. In the early 1900s, I’m not sure exactly when, and this isn’t the sort of book that requires copious amounts of research, the aeroplane was developed. Smart people quickly saw its potential as a piece of weaponry. Dropping things on your enemy from a great height has been a military tactic for generations. Being able to actually fly above the heads of your enemies had, until that moment, been simply a pipe dream, akin to pigs flying, except that the pigs were humans.

The aeroplane is a modern day miracle. Keeping thousands of tones (well maybe not thousands) suspended in the air is a triumph of modern day physics (who would have thought that grade 12 math would serve a purpose after all). It didn’t take long for the purity of this new invention to be soiled by someone with a thirst for power. Without planes World War 2 could still be going today. What a horrible thought.

The technology doesn’t stop there, scientists and military minds are now working on the theme of sending things very high up in the air, and either keeping them there, or having them crash down on thousands of innocent civilians. That’s how wars are won. Never mind the “collateral damage”* just blow up as much of the other side’s stuff as possible. The United States, at the time of writing, are pursuing the ultimate in aerospace technology, the Star Wars program, spaceships that blow up other people’s missiles. To think that all this was born because two brothers were sick of walking around and wanted to fly instead.
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* Since the second Gulf war, otherwise known as the “liberation of the people of Iraq” Collateral Damage has been the term employed by the media to describe unexpected civilian casualties. Liberation too has undergone a process of redefinition. Liberation now means to leave the civilians in a worse state than when you found them, sometimes dead. “Liberation” and “Collateral Damage” go hand in hand.

April 2, 2009

Silencing the knockers

Today I feel tough. And manly. And have no insecurities on the basis that I drive an Excel – not that I ever feel particularly insecure on those points… it is after all, a purple Excel.

But Excels are for tough people. Bikies even. When they’re not riding their Harleys and bashing each other to death in airports.

And Excels are bulletproof (almost) and will keep you alive in the face of gunfire. Apparently. So there.

April 1, 2009

The Beginners Guide to Taking Over the World – the early years

A short history of World Domination

Before 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. Civilisations that even thousands of years ago were locked in heated conflict, fighting for control. Admittedly their views of control were quite different to ours and involved the eradication of all opposition, but at heart their goal was the same.

Early historical manuscripts deal mainly with the areas in and around what is now known as the Middle East. The super powers of the day, Egypt, Babylon, Israel and Assyria along with others who came and went, traded blows for many hundreds of years. It would appear that success in these times was, as is the case today, largely attributed to superior weaponry and manpower. However, in some cases, particularly in the case of Israel, it appeared that having a deity in your corner added some clout to the claims of human kings. Kings David and Solomon certainly would not have achieved the military successes attributed to them without the help of a higher power.

Many dynasties were also created on the back of a strong economy, it is important not to underestimate the value of material wealth in attempting to establish oneself as a superpower.

The reigns of early global authorities are also marked by a propensity to erect large statues in honour of either the ruler of the day or to mark the empire’s achievements. In fact the recognised “seven wonders of the ancient world” more often than not were built in recognition of a world power. It seems silly that so much manpower was wasted on the construction of these wonders. It’s similar to the high-powered company executive spending excessive amounts on a new vehicle that will simply gather dust in a corporate car park. Only the seven wonders do have some sort of lasting appeal whereas the executive will no doubt replace their car every few years. Wasting resources is not the best way to go about taking over the world. Many rulers found their rule rapidly concluding after their “wonder” had been completed. It’s probably a good idea to keep your rule as low key as possible until you are sure there is no opposition. Erecting 33m tall bronze statues like the Colossus of Rhodes is a sure-fire way to get noticed by other would be rulers.

It is worth noting, that arguably the greatest empire the world has ever seen, the great empire of Rome, erected very few large monuments that did not serve some greater purpose. It helped Rome’s cause that generally the purpose of their constructed monoliths like the Colosseum was to advance the empire’s power. The Colosseum in particular was a great method of controlling the Roman populace. Provide entertainment to the masses and they’ll love you for it. That could almost be a quote from a famous Roman ruler, however since it hasn’t been recorded in any of the annals of history you’ll just have to take my word for it.

The Roman Empire was not based on an entertained, happy, and supportive populace alone. Their rule was made possible by those two pillars of empire building – superior weaponry and well trained, numerous, armed forces. These coupled, or tripled, with a strong economy were enough to enable an enduring campaign of world conquest.

Throughout history empires have risen, and fallen, on the strength of their emperor, or ruler. While weapons may be important, an army without a leader is like, well, an unorganised, leaderless army. Lacking direction and resolve.
The diagram below expresses the importance of a leader in any world conquest.

April 1, 2009

Confickeration

If you haven’t heard of the Conficker Worm you must have been living under a bush or something. Even the ABC Morning Show in Townsville is talking about it.

To be honest I haven’t done anything about Conficker. I haven’t even checked my various computers for the nasty little monster. And now its fury is meant to be being unleashed upon us tomorrow I am feeling like I should.

The US Government has come to the rescue with a nice, easy test from a reputable(?) source…

I’ll be running it at home tonight. I think we’ll be right – but it’s probably worth checking.

March 31, 2009

Beginners guide to taking over the world – foreword

Foreword
Are you tired of reading those so-called self-help books that leave you no better off than you were before you bought them, worse off in fact, for having spent the $19.95 on a book that promised the world but delivered nothing?

Have you been suckered into forking out your hard earned dollars for products that had attractive packaging only to find that the product inside fell apart after one use?

Are you sick of politicians taking advantage of you, making promises they can’t keep, all the while filling their pockets with public funds, money that should have been spent on hospitals and schools?

Do you want to do something about it?

Well here’s the book for you.

World domination is not easy. Many people have tried to rule the world. Few have succeeded. Those who succeed are immortalised in poems, songs and statues, revered by many and laughed at by none. Those who failed are despised, ridiculed and often end up dead, evil despots seldom live long lives.

Taking over the world is obviously not an easy task. There are snares that many would be world leaders have fallen into, hurdles that others have fallen at after strong starts and obstacles to overcome at every turn.

This is a seven step guide to any would be monarch, guaranteed to at least set you on the right path to glory and unimaginable power.

March 31, 2009

The beginners guide to taking over the world – foreword to the foreword

It’s a sad morning this morning. The last offering of “our daily Fred” until they release their next catalogue.

It’s been nice having a series of posts in the pipeline appearing once a day. I like that it makes me (or at least my post rate) look a little more prolific.

Coincidentally I’ve recently been putting all my eggs into one basket – or rather, all my documents onto one hard drive, and I came across a document I wrote some time ago… before I had a blog even… that I would like to share with you all. Piece by piece. I’ll be putting it up unedited – in the confidence that it’s as timeless as any mediocre self help book.

Starting with the next post. There’ll be 12 in total. Which will pad out my postings for the next week… or next 11 (today excluded) days to be precise. But who’s counting?

March 31, 2009

Pre-emptive strike

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.

What really gets me isn’t the jaywalking. It’s the pre-emptive pedestrians – the ones who start stepping onto the road as you approach in your car.

Defensive driving means assuming that every other road user is an idiot. I operate under that principle. Whenever I see a pedestrian start their perambulations I hesitate – like a rabbit in the headlights – only I’m driving. I’m the one posing the threat.

The thought of pedestrians blindly wandering in front of my pristine purple excel fills me with dread. A pedestrian would no doubt do more damage to my car than a kangaroo…

So, next time you start crossing the road as a car approaches – even if you are completely aware the car is approaching – stop, and think of the children.

March 30, 2009

On the blacklist

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.

My advice for Tim – and for others in the same boat – is just subscribe to my blog using Google Reader – no school in its right mind will block google. You may have to rename the feed.

Facebook is blocked at my work too – but I get my friend’s status updates via RSS.

March 30, 2009