This has been floating around for a while – but I haven’t posted it yet. It’s timely based on the emails I’ve had flying back and forth between my atheist friends and myself today…
It’s magician Penn Teller, renowned atheist, encouraging people who believe in hell to evangelise – and presenting an interesting set of instructions for evangelistic methodology.
“How much do you have to hate somebody not to evangelise…”
I think I mentioned once before that one of my sister’s uni lecturers once punk’d her class by banning the use of wikipedia in assignments and then placing false information in the relevant entries to track who ignored their instructions.
The growing reliance of mainstream media on the user generated encyclopedia has been beautifully exploited by one man’s little piece of poetic justice.
Shane Fitzgerald edited the entry for French composer Maurice Jarre hours after his death to include the following quote:
“One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear.”
This quote hit obituaries in major media outlets all over the country almost immediately – although it was removed from the wikipedia entry within hours.
Fitzgerald came clean – and here’s the story being reported in the SMH – with this quote:
“I am 100 per cent convinced that if I hadn’t come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up,” he said. “It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact.”
While I’m not suggesting that there’s a culture of feeding purposefully false information into wikipedia one only has to look through the history of changes to Scott Minto’s profile to know that it’s a pretty regular occurrence.
The bit in Fitzgerald’s quote about stuff being printed becoming “truth” is interesting, and it makes Wikipedia an important element of a PR campaign if you want a nice endorsement of your key messages. Wikipedia is a triumph in post-modern market driven thinking where truth really is up in the air and able to be determined by the market – which is perfect if your job is to manipulate or shape a message.
That is all.
These Pepsi Max ads are apparently quite controversial – dealing as they do with the sensitive topic of Suicide.
I don’t personally have a problem with them – they’re just a more colourful version of the Little Book(s) of Bunny Suicides – perennial favourites in the Campbell household…
Apparently those books were inspiring copy cats (or rabbits) in China so were pulled off some shelves… I wouldn’t have thought they were a particularly useful how to guide – given the elaborate nature of the set ups involved.
If, by chance, you’ve reached this post by googling “how to” – and “suicide” please don’t do it. Instead call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
It’s not only teachers striking in Townsville – apparently we’ve got the highest incidence of “bird strike” in an Australian regional city.
BIRDS have hit more planes at Townsville airport than at any other regional centre in the country, a new report shows.
From 2000 until the end of March, 324 bird strikes at Townsville airport were reported to the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, with 17 strikes in the first three months of this year.
The figures were higher than at Rockhampton with 263 and Alice Springs on 160.
I only really posted on this because I saw that great Pelican picture in the Wall Street Journal’s photoblog.
I have come down with a case of what a friend describes as man flu. It’s gender specific terminology. It’s the “flu” you have when you’ve got a cold that’s bad enough taking the day off work – and the male threshold for such a malady is apparently significantly lower than the female variety.
All the research suggests you’re better off staying home in these sorts of cases anyway – as is your employer.
The flu mask picture is from here – which also features a bunch of other nifty designs.
So the Hillsong takeover of the Garden City Church is in full swing – with the church to be renamed: Hillsong Brisbane Campus.
The Houstons are turning their global domination strategies back to Australian shores and focusing on “multisite” expansion – ala Mark Driscoll.
Here’s how the previous minister of Garden City felt about the expansion – this is an excerpt of an article in the SMH today:
Garden City’s senior pastor for eight years, Bruce Hills, was forced out before the arrival of the Houstons. Garden City Christian Church announced Mr Hills’s resignation in December, amid criticism that the church was not growing enough. Yet in an address to a Christian conference at Easter, Mr Hills revealed he had a nervous breakdown last September. “Emotionally I just imploded,” he said.
When he returned from eight weeks’ leave, Garden City Christian Church elders told him: “We’d rather have more of a CEO leader than you. We’d like you to resign.”
Describing it as “the deepest, darkest experience I’ve ever been through”, Mr Hills said he was “really angry about what these people had done”.
Steve Dixon, who has been acting pastor at Garden City since Mr Hills’s resignation, will now be “campus pastor” of Hillsong Brisbane.
I love the way this church – and Hillsong – have been so caring and compassionate to their leader. Very biblical. Especially the bit where they sacked him because the church was not growing enough… I assume they mean numerically, because this would certainly indicate a level of spiritual immaturity.
Oh, and Craig reckons they’re now a denomination. In completely unrelated news – have you ever noticed that you only have to switch one letter in denomination to make it demonination? That would be a Freudian slip if ever I saw one…
Turns out the farting office chair – or more correctly the tweeting fart detecting office chair – wasn’t the lowest you can go with new technologies.
Here’s how to make a toilet that tweets on each flush…and here’s the Twitter account for you to follow. Here are some samples:
- plop plop fizz fizz
- blue?! WHAT were you eating?
- plop plop fizz fizz
- you sank my battleship
- hey tweeps, i just wanted to share this awesome moment with you
What can I say – I’m all about enriching your day to day lives.
My fixation with ninjas is well documented… but did you also know that I’m fascinated with assassins – largely due to two of my favourite game franchises – Hitman and Assassins Creed, and martial arts movies… So something bringing all of those elements together is enough to warrant a Sunday afternoon post. I give you the poster for “Ninja Assassin” possibly the most eagerly anticipated movie release of 2009 (except for Transformers 2)…
It’s directed by the guy who directed V for Vendetta, and the special effects were put together by the guy who did the Matrix and Speed Racer – so it should be awesome.
Video games these days are so much more fun than they were when I first picked up a console controller. I can’t remember which came first – the NES or the CD TV – it’s all a bit of a blur. Having a father with a casual gig writing games reviews had its perks. Actually, it must have been a NES. Unless the Vic-20 counts as a console…
It did, from memory, plug into your TV… in fact, as a delightful tangent – I should point out that Dad’s game reviewing gig came after he wrote and published this book – unavailable for GBP4.95 from The Book Depository – for those of you who aren’t link clickers it was called “Beyond Simple Basic – Delving deeper into your Vic-20”. Seriously, with a father like that what chance did I have of not turning out as a geek.
Anyway, that’s a significant digression from my original point – but the Vic-20 was an 8-bit machine, so it’s tangentially related. My point was – games are now better. And I’m going to suggest that graphic violence is what makes that so. So it warms me to the cockles of my heart to see this Flickr set – of 8-bit characters rendered beautifully and experiencing graphic deaths. Here’s the demise of a Goomba – cleverly titled Goombash…
There are plenty more where that came from. Including this Pac-Attack…
* the title is only vaguely clever if you know that there are 8 bits to a byte. I have actually always wondered why 8-bit machines weren’t called one byte machines. I might have to look that up…
Who is Laurence Tureaud you ask… he’s Mr T – the bodyguard/actor/wrestler/reality TV star/face of Snickers/recording artist/kitchenware endorser/Christian/cartoon character famous for roles in the A-Team, the first ever Wrestlemania and Rocky.
He’s been around. He’s an interesting guy. And he’s so diversely talented that there’s a little bit of Mr T to appeal to everybody.
For a starter he’s dead against “your mum” jokes – as this film clip demonstrates…
If that wasn’t your cup of tea – here’s his cartoon from the early 80s…
Here’s Mr T in the kitchen…
Here he is in action in the very first Wrestlemania tagging with Hulk Hogan…
Here’s his “Get some nuts” snickers ad…
And a collection of Mr T’s wise sayings from the A-Team…
And here, finally, for your viewing pleasure, is Mr T’s first fight against Rocky in HD…
It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow – or perhaps Mothers’ Day – depending on your marital status – or indeed your understanding of the definition of the day. Perhaps you’ve forgotten to buy a present. Well, you’re out of time. Unless you buy something online – and perhaps, given that you’ve forgotten your mum, you should buy a clock. Here’s some fun ones from around the interwebs – and where to buy them. The good ones aren’t cheap.
The “back to university maths” clock
