I may have posted this as one of my reader items from the last week or so – but if you’re seriously concerned about cutting environmental corners wherever you can ( so you can drive a 4WD or commit other justifiable environmental homicide), then this is the font for you. It’ll possibly save you money too.
Ecofont - inspired by silkworms
Uncle Santa needs you
According to some Christian’s it’s no coincidence that Santa is an anagram of Satan. My wife doesn’t think fondly of St Nick. Who by all accounts was a lovely guy who anonymously and generously gave to the poor and downtrodden of his community.
There’s a long and passionate debate regarding the evils of Santa – and specifically the evils of teaching your kids about Santa. Is it a lie? Probably. But I’m not overly worried by it – if you’re going to tar all “fiction” with the same brush then go for it. Hate Santa, as much as you hate Harry Potter. Ironically, Harry Potter is probably considered evil by most people who hate Santa.
The other refrain as commonly heard as “Jingle Bells” at this time of year is that Christmas has been commercialised. That commercialisation is evil. That modern Christmas has been stripped of its meaning. Well yes. Christmas is commercial. That’s no reason not to support it. Particularly this year. Christmas means jobs. We’re facing the “economic downturn” since the great depression. Jobs are good. Spending money is good. Do it wisely.
I wonder sometimes if our spirit of Christmas protectionism – it’s our holiday and you guys can only celebrate it if you remember our God – damages what could be a great PR opportunity for the church. People are generally thinking nice things about us Christians at this time of year – we get them a “holy day”, they sing carols that often contain the gospel message. And here’s the church, harping on about commercialisation.
Did you know that in Scotland Christmas was banned for almost 400 years – right up until the early 20th century. In fact – the good old Presbyterians were so keen on the ban, they made their signing of a treaty with England contingent on its introduction there.
Scottish Presbyterians, when called on for support by the Puritans of the English Parliament in 1644, did so on the understanding that their allies would in exchange impose the ban on Christmas. For over a decade traditional English Christmas festivities were prohibited
Really. A ban on Christmas. That’s a public relations disaster. Like the “war on Christmas” being waged throughout churches world wide now.
Christmas in Australia is big business. $37.2 billion worth of business. If you divide that by the average Australian wage – or an aggregated household average wage of $115,000 – that’s 328,000 households who keep their jobs because of Christmas (unless I’ve got my zeroes wrong in the billions bit of the calculation… it’s nine in Australia right?). In very poor economic modelling. Of course, retail workers earn less per hour than the “average wage” – which probably means more jobs rather than less… and because we import a lot of the stuff being bought and sold a lot of the money leaves the country, and trickle down economics is dead… anyway. Christmas means jobs. Christmas means food on the table for families this Christmas.
In a second set of calculations – Mastercard reckons the average Australian spent $800 on Christmas last year. That comes up with a figure about half that of the above methodology. 20 million people, multiplied by $800 is $16 billion, which works out to 320,000 jobs paid at $50,000 per year – nice round figures. Whichever way you look at it – Christmas means jobs.
Unemployment is set to surge. Be a good citizen. Celebrate Christmas in the spirit of St Nick – who gave generously and anonymously. And buy me something useless from here… oh wait, that’s a Japanese site. In a slightly related note – the CASE blog has an interesting post about “ethical shopping” that’s worth taking into account. It’s not that fair trade garbage that has taken over people’s sensibilities when it comes to coffee – it’s just biblical advice for shopping with a clean conscience.
For those of you unconvinced by my argument – or more convinced by this (satire warning) those of you who want your children to believe Santa is evil – here’s an evil Santa generator – if you put pictures of Evil Santa all round your house your child will thank you for it later – and be much less messed up than they would be were they to believe in Santa. What do I know anyway, I’m not a parent yet.
Rules for public Christianity 101 – If you’re going to put a stupid Jesus fish on your car – don’t put it under a massive advertisement for your fake ID business.
Want faith with that?
Clearly the guy behind this business isn’t the smartest cookie in the Cookie Man store (mmm cookie man, incidently Townsville has a combined Cookie Man and Baskin-Robbins the two nicest smelling franchises in the world)… anyway. If you’re going to have a Jesus fish on your car:
These are all reasons not for me to put a stupid Jesus fish sticker on my car. And probably for you not to put one on yours. Here are some reasons you shouldn’t have a Jesus Fish on your car from urban dictionary. If you want people to know you’re a Christian – tell them the gospel. Or wear a good novelty T-Shirt.
Anna Coren now works for CNN. CNN reporters travel to work. If they worked for the Chinese Police Force she could travel by segway. It seems segways are a great way to steadily hold and aim standard issue Chinese weaponry.
When Segways attack
The Segway was meant to revolutionise personal transportation. Other than Arrested Development’s Gob they haven’t had a lot of success. They’re pretty much banned in New South Wales because they can’t travel on footpaths or roads (they can travel on bike paths though – but you’d just use a bike for that wouldn’t you?). They do have a distribution arm in Queensland, a basic model will set you back about $9,000.
Corporate Minifig
Last week was BYFMTWW. Or “Bring your favourite minifig to work week”. I’m sorry I missed it. For those still not clear on what a minifig is:
Anatomy of a minifig
Goodshirt were a cool Kiwi band that Australia never managed to claim. They had this cool song called “Sophie” that had a very cool acoustic version.
But I digress. Glennz.com is my current favourite shirt site (I haven’t bought any yet – but I’d like to. Thanks mostly to these:
Experimental Music
Self Maintenance
Extreme Beginnings
Evolution
After Hours
If anyone buying me Christmas or birthday presents hasn’t done so yet – you can’t go wrong with a good novelty T-Shirt.
Another shared item from Dan. This story from the SMH.
AUSTRALIA urgently needs a national screening policy for Down syndrome, experts say, after international research showed it could halve the number of babies born with the incurable genetic condition.
So how does testing produce such amazing results?
Access to the four tests that help detect if a foetus has Down syndrome varies widely between states, urban and rural areas, and public and private patients, leading to stark differences in birth and termination rates.
Amazing. The miracles of modern technology.
10,000 hours. 416 and two third days. That’s how long it takes to become prodigiously good at whatever it is you do. Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote tipping point
I plan to get a hold of it for some light holiday reading – but in the meantime there’s this idea in there that I found quite interesting. Here’s a review on the chapter in question from the simple dollar (which is a pretty useful blog in its own right).
The 10,000 Hour Rule
Here, Gladwell continues with the birthdate theme, but argues that sometimes the year is important. Gladwell gives two examples: the generation of “robber barons” (Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and so on) who were all born in the 1830s, and the generation of computer entrepreneurs (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on) who were all born in the 1950s. Sometimes, it requires being born in a certain period to have the opportunity for exceptionalism.
The more important (and interesting) part of the chapter, though, discusses the huge role that nearly-obsessive practice plays in making people great. Gladwell uses The Beatles and Bill Gates as examples here, showing how they both were able to take advantage of stupendous amounts of practice time to become very, very good at what they did. In each case, Gladwell estimated that it took 10,000 hours of practice for those individuals to hone their natural raw talents and become world class – roughly ten years of multiple hours of practice (3 or so on average) every single day. Gladwell offers many other examples of how this practice pays off, but that magic number of 10,000 hours pops up again and again.
I’m not sure I’ve spent 10,000 hours on anything. And I’m not sure what I’d like to spend 10,000 hours on. Any ideas?
If your investment banker was spending an inordinate amount of money on three trips to space in the middle of a “global economic crisis” would you change banks? His name is Per Wimmer, he’s lined up to be the first space tourist. He runs an investment bank.
In brief, Per Wimmer is a global financier, an entrepreneur, an adventurer, a pioneer and a philanthropist – or, as a commentator has argued, a true “Indiana Jones meets 007 James Bond.”
This is a cool picture from a series of coffee art on napkins.
My inner accountant quickly convinced me to buy one of those little espresso machines (for the price of approximately 10 tall lattes). It had a steam nozzle to heat milk, which one should clean very thoroughly after each use. I didn’t have the patience to do so. Within a few uses, an unappetizing, dark brown, organic lump developed around the nozzle. A few days later it had become unremovable, and I reverted to getting my coffee outside.
That’s right people. Timely advice to clean your steam wands.
Nine year old Alex Greven is putting out a self help book for guys called “How to talk to girls”. Advice from a nine year old with no experience may be a bitter pill to swallow. But here are some quotes from Alex (via the SMH)
On brains v brawn
“You want the girl to notice you,” he writes. “But you don’t want to draw too much attention to yourself or she will think you are a crazy madman who doesn’t even know where his brain is.”
He says it is important not to be a show-off.
But it is good to be the smartest boy in the class, because “girls will be prowling at your feet”.
On grooming
“Comb your hair and don’t wear sweats. Control your hyperness (cut down on the sugar if you have to). Don’t act desperate.”
On pretty girls
He warned boys to be wary of “pretty girls”.
“It is easy to spot pretty girls because they have big earrings, fancy dresses and all the jewellery … pretty girls are like cars that need a lot of oil,” he writes in chapter three.
On heartbreak
“Sometimes, you get a girl to like you, then she ditches you. Life is hard, move on!”
“Or sometimes it doesn’t work out. I had a crush on a girl in preschool. Then my family had to move, so I had to let her wash out of my mind.”
“About 73 per cent of regular girls ditch boys; 98 per cent of pretty girls ditch boys.”
“If you do get a girl to like you, that is victory. Winning victory is a dream for most boys, but it is very rare.”
The boy is clearly a genius.
When you can make a scene from Super Mario using 17,000 pins. There’s a whole gallery of Mario goodness awaiting anyone brave enough to click that link. I know they’re called drawing pins… but that’s ridiculous.
Just over a week ago I posted a link to a Flickr set of endings from movies. It seems fitting then, that I direct you to this website dedicated to opening scenes. A while back, in my blogging hiatus, I read about this guy named Saul Bass – a famous title scene creator – who also designed a bunch of famous corporate logos. I can’t see any of his work on this particular site though – so he’s only relevant because he’s a kind of cool guy.
Mel Gibson is in trouble. The screenwriter from his hit movie gorefest “The Passion of the Christ” is claiming he was underpaid. I haven’t seen the Passion. I have no intention of doing so. I don’t see how Gibson’s interpretation of the events of the crucifixion of Jesus could be any more compelling than the text.
The scriptwriter is seeking $10 million for the work. Pretty good money if you can get it – particularly since the original was pretty much there in the form of one of the world’s best selling and most popular books. Any monkey could have produced a screenplay from that source material. Who does this guy think he is?
Sudoku Championships look suspiciously like giant sudoku. Requires big pen.