Keith Loutit is the man who produced those amazing tilt shift videos of the Sydney Harbour I posted a while ago. He’s at it again. This time making a demolition derby look like a game with Tonka trucks.
Bach off
This is the best work of the 2008 Walkley awards best headline winner Rob Mills. It’s good – but I think the real gem came from one of the other nominees. I’d like to know on what basis these were selected. The winners announcement says:
“Knowing what makes a good headline is instinctive and ethereal rather than formulaic, but Mills prefers to use humour to grab readers’ attention. These headlines, from politics to the arts, shimmer with lively puns and pop-culture references. They are layered, lithe and fresh.”
Here’s the complete list of nominees and their submissions:Headings
Rick Feneley, The Sydney Morning Herald,
“The felonious monk and his trail of lies”
“Welcome to the CBD: all arteries, no pulse”
“Della in the freezer”
Rick Feneley, The Sydney Morning Herald,
“The felonious monk and his trail of lies”
“Welcome to the CBD: all arteries, no pulse”
“Della in the freezer”
Rob Mills, The Sydney Morning Herald,
“Bach from the dead: fresh portrait of a decomposer”
“Yes, I did inhale: Liberal leader admits sniffing staffer’s chair”
“Dear me: Della penned Iguanas letter”
David Winter, The Monthly,
“It’s Bennelong time”
“The great pretender”
“From Mandarin to top banana”
My favourite by far is the last one. I even bought the magazine in question thanks to that stunning cover headline. I do like the Bach one though.
If life were a musical
It would be much easier to steer the plot with this little number. A shirt with its very own in built speaker. Just $40 US. It’s a limited release – and the speaker can be removed so that you can wash it. The shirt that is. Not the speaker. Here’s a demo video… just in case you’re not convinced.
Change we can believe in
The problem with campaigning on a definitive narrative – or theme – is that you’ll be stuck with it when you get into office. Like the Rudd government and the economic albatross around its neck – Obama is now stuck with this rhetoric of change. And is copping criticism for appointing people with Washington experience. His whole campaign message was predicated on getting rid of the influence of lobbyists. Not getting rid of everyone in Washington…
Here’s Obama’s take on the situation from the Huffington Post.
“So it would be surprising if I selected a Treasury Secretary who had had no connection with the last Democratic administration, because that would mean that the person had no experience in Washington whatsoever. And I suspect that you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury Secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council, at one of the most critical economic times in our history, who had no experience in government whatsoever. What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.”
It’s a lemon
This clock is remarkably similar to a chemistry assignment I did in year 12. If only I’d gone into commercial science…
Optima Prime
The words “Cool” and “Transformers T-Shirt” and “ASCII Art” were never destined to be included in the same sentence. Until now. This is the second time I’ve made an Optimus Prime pun inspired post. You can buy this shirt for $14US. I know I want one.
K-Ruddy Year
A year on, K-Rudd hasn’t grown on me. He’s still a triumph of symbolism over substance. What has he done? Not much. Annabel Crabb, still my favourite political commentator, obtusely reviewed his year in office… complete with Shakespeare reference. I’m still in awe of her. She is brilliant.
And then, in a story on his dropping the d word – “defecit” in parliament yesterday – highlighted this little gem from the PM’s first post trip question time…
As he arrived for question Time, at 2pm, the Prime Minister scanned the Opposition front bench and performed a double-take when he espied the employment spokesman, Andrew Southcott, whose Movember moustache has survived a sickly infancy to become a luxuriant ornament to his upper lip. Noticing the PM’s surprise, Mr Southcott told him: “I grew it – while you were away.”
The comment was a palpable hit; even the row of disciplined countenances along the Government’s front bench betrayed the odd appreciative smirk.
Anyway, a year of Labor in power. Interest rates have plunged – which would be a good thing, if they hadn’t been raised first. But in isolation it’s quite a positive – shame about the rest of the economy – and the deficit… politically a bad move, given a budget surplus is generally understood by the population as being a marker of successful fiscal managment. I think a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing – provided it’s contained to spending on infrastructure. What’s the repo man going to do? Take away our roads and ports? The rest of the population is happy to borrow beyond its means to finance a lifestyle and to invest – why isn’t that thinking extended to the government? Anyway, Rudd will have to be prepared to die by a sword of his own making – given that he promised a surplus budget. The Coalition will no doubt continue hammering the fact that they paid off Labor’s debts and they do still have a reputation of economic management – conveniently the Global Economic Crisis really began to be noticed under Rudd’s watch, and there blame will be apportioned. The global economy is largely out of governmental control. I’m more interested in Rudd’s bad policy moves in emissions trading and other decisions that will ultimately cost jobs and make us less competitive – and the fact that he’s the most boring Prime Minister in the world with a massive reliance on cliche and cheap buzz phrases like “a bridge too far.”
In the beginning
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.
Passionate Defense
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?
Hippy to be square
Last week I bragged about how green my gaming console use was. Greenpeace disagrees. They hate Nintendo. I can simultaneously satiate my need to be green and my intolerance of hippies by playing the 64.
See sore (sic) bike
An invention for the ages. Headbutt your friends in the ultimate pedal powered version of push me pull me. As you lose weight through exertion your friend gets closer to the road – eventually taking over with catastrophic consequences:
Obama Blend
A Jefferson coffee roaster has launched the Obama Blend – a mix of Indonesian, Kenyan and Hawaiian beans. Longfellows started producing the blend recently after the owner’s son had the idea while standing in the shower. Campos Coffee in Sydney has been producing their own Obama Blend for months – at least since June.
At the moment I’m drinking Ethiopian Yirgacheffe roasted in a breadmaker using a heatgun. Ethiopia is the home of coffee. The Yirgacheffe is spectacular and I’ve been looking for some way to mention it in a post in the last couple of days.
Sudoku takes Singapore mall by storm
Sudoku Championships look suspiciously like giant sudoku. Requires big pen.
On the Religious Right
Frank Schaeffer – son of theologian/evangelist Francis Schaeffer (sometimes regarded as the founder of the Religious Right) – has some interesting thoughts on the movement’s future posted in an article on the Huffington Post today. He has made major moves to distance himself from his father – even converting to the Greek Orthodox church. I read a couple of his novels this year – they’re pretty funny, they deal with some of the frustrations of growing up in the home of a Calvinist Minister – I could relate, but don’t share his sense of disenfranchisement with reformed theology.
He brings up the Old Testament laws – like stoning homosexuals – as a strawman point in his otherwise reasonable piece. There are some theological problems with this point which he doesn’t go over:
1. The Old Testament laws are specific to God’s people – Israel – Israel do not run around imposing the laws on their neighbours – although foreigners can sign up.
2. Israel don’t do a great job of keeping the laws – and the laws were set at a standard that no human could keep – hence the need for Jesus.
Schaeffer’s argument basically focuses on these other points:
1. America is not “God’s people” – even if they are nominally a Christian nation – the presence of just one non Christian in America would debunk that.
2. Nor is America a theocracy.
It’s a good article on how the Religious Right could choose to be a force for good – rather than bleating and trying to repeal laws that are popular with the majority.
EDIT: I think I need to point out that I do think there are some issues that transcend the rights of the majority and the need for protection of minorities – and in fact there are some issues where this point of view is shaped by theology. Issues like abortion – where the question is not a question of freedom for the parents (not just the mother) – but also the question of protecting the innocent unborn child – and their rights. Schaeffer makes an interesting point that’s worth repeating if you haven’t clicked through to the article:
“This knowledge signals not just a loss for the Religious right but a resounding and permanent defeat. It also signals (to anyone sane) that even if you except the Religious right’s view that, for instance, all abortion is murder, gay marriage an affront to God’s natural law and so forth, a change of tactics is in order. Obviously no one is getting convinced, but rather the culture is moving in the other direction. In fact the Religious Right has made its case so badly that with friends like these them causes need no enemies.”
Tanner’s hide
Finance and Deregulation Minister Lindsay Tanner is Web 2.0 enabled with a blog over at the SMH. Today’s post is all about the government’s new Web 2.0 based thinking – they’re probably going to use blogs in some upcoming community consultation. Ironic really, given that the same government is advocating restrictions to the internet that would put us on par with China. Perhaps comments they don’t agree with in the consultative process will be blocked? Or the IP address taken down and the perpetraitor (sic) silently removed from their homes and literally excommunicated (possibly a removal of Internet privileges).
Here’s Tanner’s rather convoluted description of what he thinks about Web 2.0…
“This new mode of production is known in the academic literature as peer production, but is more commonly referred to as Web 2.0. It is a trend that applies to much more than the creation of cultural goods, although these goods, such as the innumerable YouTube video mashups which poke fun at politicians, are acting as the harbingers of change.”
“Peer production empowers every citizen to be creator and critic, as well as consumer, of information. It is a mode of production that is enabled by two key factors. The first is the collapse of cost barriers to producing information – computers are now widely accessible in western society. The second is the removal of logistical and functional barriers to collaboration through new internet based networks.”
“The glue that binds peer production together is the ethic of collaboration it inculcates among groups. People contribute their time to peer production because they find communities with a passion for making their adopted content niche the best it can be.”
“This environment also creates efficiencies by allowing skilled amateurs to allocate their intellectual capital to the content niche about which they are most passionate. This is significant when you consider the quality and value of work done by people for love and not money.”
All in all, his article is a pretty garbled way of saying the Government is down with the Internets and all that.
“These changes are not easy for government to process. Our Westminster bureaucracy has optimised its policy production processes over centuries. Adaptation to the new information environment will be neither quick nor easy.”
I guess that’s something Obama can relate to.
Here’s his obligatory dig at the Howard Government:
“The Australian Government should be leading the way in adapting our old processes of consultation, policy making and regulation to the connected world. Yet we lag behind other nations in both the scale and pace of reform, a situation largely attributable to the culture of secrecy, spin and apathy of the Howard years.”
“I am taking steps to reinvigorate the Commonwealth’s efforts in this area. For example, early in the new year the Government will run a number of trial online consultations using blogs and other Web 2.0 tools”
You know what would be brilliantly ironic – if all this consultation got blocked by the Government’s proposed clean feed (a very bad idea – putting us on par with China in terms of restrictions) with it’s invisible blacklist of sites. My disdain for the Australian Christian Lobby is growing – I think they miss the point on so many issues when dealing with a secular government and trying to impose Christian values on the general public – who generally aren’t Christians. I acknowledge that as Christians we believe our way of life is better – and more in line with God’s expectations – but it’s not for us to impose our code of conduct on the rest of society. I also acknowledge that increased consumption of pornography has some links to increases in sexual violence and is socially undesirable. But I don’t think this is the way to tackle it – and I don’t think – as Jim Wallace so tactlessly put it that opposing this plan is tantamount to supporting the evils that lurk in the dark corners of the internet. Here’s the quote from the ACL Media Release.
“Obviously the Internet industry is going to continue to fight this important initiative
but the interests of children must be placed first.”
“The need to prevent access to illegal hard-core material and child pornography must
be placed above the industry’s desire for unfettered access.”
Censorship is bad. Particularly for the church. Once you start advocating censorship what happens if a militant anti-Christian or Islamic party gets in and adds all the Christian sites to the black list? Have you thought about that ACL? Have you? Christians who are serious about Christianity’s real agenda – which is the proclamation of the gospel can not be supportive of Government intervention into the minds and beliefs of the general public.
By all means, if you’re a Christian then take part in the political process – but don’t pretend to speak for all of us – and do so to raise your opinion on a matter – not to demand legislation be based on a Christian world view. That is not in the spirit of democracy – that’s a theocracy.
Oh, and if you want to voice your opinion on this matter through the press (or the Government’s upcoming Web 2.0 consultancy process) – the ACL has a handy letters to the editor writing guide.
I’m going to do some work now.