Recent readings...

Fun fun fun on the Net with a mix of funny, interesting and disturbing stuff...

In Japan, you can buy non-alcoholic beer designed for children - good to get them started early! I've seen these drinks for sale in Himeji. I haven't tried them coz I can buy the real thing, dang!

In Kyoto, a mascot for a shopping street has become a cultural phenomenon since its name is also the name given to a kind of manga where the protagonists are young men who fall in love with each other. The shopping street managers are actually encouraging it since the extra money and publicity are good for everyone!

In what only can be a sign of the apocalypse, Mark Philippoussis is starring in a reality TV show to choose a new girlfriend. We have a new definition of 'desperation', as well as 'attention whore'.

In the U.S. a man has found a way to 'burn' sea water, unleashing a possible alternative to petroleum based engines. PLEASE develop some of this new technology! Bring it on!

In Mexico, farmers are burning fields of the cactus used to make tequila and replacing them with corn since the price has sky-rocketed recently. (Thanks George Bush and big agri-business again for stuffing up our lives) Enjoy the tequila while you still can.


Australia's WorkChoices legislation is working so well.

The figures show 37 per cent of employees work overtime or extra hours - and about half of them do so for no extra pay.

Thirty per cent said their shifts regularly overlapped the hours between 7pm and 7am as part of their main job. Three in five said they had no say about when they started or finished.

Yay, Australia! (another reason to stay in Japan, even though the yen sucks at the moment...)



And in follow up to the story about Aung San Suu Kyi's detention being extended, a peaceful group of demonstrators was set upon by a group of junta-supporting thugs as they tried to go to a temple to pray for her release.

Again

Burma's military junta has extended Aung San Suu Kyi's home detention by another year.

An utterly disgraceful situation.

I have a new quest...

It's to find one of these!


Also, from the country that brought you free wire-tapping with your citizenship, comes this delightful tale of a man who was nearly arrested for terrorism for taking a picture of some french fries. Enjoy!

Oh, yeah....

And today's our wedding anniversary! Four years!

How does it feel? To misquote George Carlin, this is the longest I've been married so far...




(The pic is from our honeymoon in the Seychelles - unfortunately the scans from the wedding photo company are all crap! When I have time I'll do them all again myself.....)

Following up

A while back I posted a story about Antigua taking on the U.S. in the WTO. The U.S. has been trying to shut down Antigua's online gambling industry for some time now, and finally Antigua is now in the position of applying for restitution.

So, that means they may suspend U.S. copyright - legally. Which could mean free music, movies and software for all of us.

Bring. It. On.

News wrap-up

Interesting: Japanese schools are introducing playing with English language learning software on Nintendo DS systems as part of regular lessons - and it's working!

Japan sports: A piece about the growing concern over the lack of top-flight Japanese sumo wrestlers. As I type the top two wrestlers at the summer competition are both Mongolians.

Scary: Is Dubai going to construct the Death Star?

Scarier: A new, deadlier, antibiotic resistant strain of tuberculosis is showing up in Africa.

Really scary: Polymers are forever. No really, they are going to be in the ecosystem forever.

Happy Birthday

to me!

It was on the 19th, but hey, it's taken me a while to get around to writing about it! A very nice day was spent.

What did I get for myself this year? I bought three Boss effects pedals for my bass this time around - Turbo Overdrive, Noise Reduction and a FUZZ pedal! Very nice sounds being made in this part of the universe.

Love is....

Picking half a kilo of strawberries at the farm, bringing them home and slicing them into a glass and half freezing them in the fridge for your wife - and then watching her inhale them in about thirty seconds after she gets home from work.

Gratitude is her smile afterwards.

I know!

It's The Matrix! Errmmm... no Ghost In The Shell! No.... errrmmmm... Minority Report!

Oh... what the heck.

It's electronic paper and microchip implants in the brain.

Share and enjoy!

Happy Mothers Day

to youuuuuuu......! (If you're a mum)

In other news, yesterday was George Carlin's birthday - a man for whom I have a very large amount of respect and have had oodles of laughter thanks to. (is that English??)

Anyway, enjoy some George Carlin links this Mothers Day!

RIP Cassette tapes

Obvious plug...

I think I had a hundred at one point. Some still have one-off recordings, old demo tapes, etc. Who knows, maybe they'll have a resurgence like vinyl seems to have done!?

Following up again...

Another couple of interesting stories about what's happening with the bees. One about how Australia's bees industry is capitalizing on the fact that the syndrome hasn't spread down under, and another about how the size of the combs seems to be a big factor in this - an issue touched on in the last article I posted.

Also there's a story of how an Italian town is rallying against a proposed US base near its World Heritage listed sites. Power to the people - yeah baby!

speechless

I just learned that one of my favourite, all-time groups, New Order, have likely split up.



Speaking about his involvement in Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, Peter Hook told Xfm that the band have broken up.

He said: "I spoke to Perry, and he asked me to play bass, as he'd heard about New Order splitting up. Well yeah, me and Bernard (Sumner) aren't working together."

When asked if the split was permanent, he added: "Bernard went off for a break with Electronic, but that was different. But it's like the boy who cried wolf this time."



I learned bass by playing along to their records, and Peter Hook is truly a bass god.

Alas.


(picture from bbc.co.uk)

Can it be....?

It's been 30 years since The Sex Pistols released "God Save The Queen".

I would certainly recommend "The Filth And The Fury" to anyone who wants to know about the era and the resonances from then to now.

Then again... emo?!? Johnny Rotten would kick their teeth in - the so-called 'third wave' anyway. Pussies, not punks.

More fun and games

Another excellent article, this time courtesy of Yifat Susskind at Znet, looking at the wider agenda of the Christian Right in America. With one of their own in the Oval Office, as well as others on the Supreme Court, in the United Nations, and so on, enacting policies that see them "...denying the morning-after pill to rape survivors in Kosovo and barred [sic] access to condoms and sexual education in AIDS-ravaged Africa," sometimes you just have to ask yourself, what would Jesus do? Would he be interested seeing half the human race denied access to basic control over their bodies? I think not.

The Sydney Morning Herald rather sensationally looks at the 'links' between Islam and other religions, namely Catholicism and Judaism. Hey - they're religions! Wow! For a more interesting and lucid book to read on the issue, I'd recommend The End Of Faith by Sam Harris.

We may not have to soon worry about dieting or living a short life, if recent research is anything to go by. It's been well established that calorie-restrictive diets can prolong life in animals, and now scientists have uncovered a gene in mice and worms that will allow us to possibly pop a pill in the future and enjoy a longer life. Yippie! Welcome to a Brave New World!

Quote of the Day

"... employers prefer college grads because they see a college degree chiefly as mark of one's ability to obey and conform. Whatever else you learn in college, you learn to sit still for long periods while appearing to be awake. And whatever else you do in a white collar job, most of the time you'll be sitting and feigning attention. Sitting still for hours on end -- whether in library carrels or office cubicles -- does not come naturally to humans. It must be learned -- although no college has yet been honest enough to offer a degree in seat-warming."

- Barbara Ehrenreich in Higher Education Conformity on ZNet

Let's Bee Friends...

Following from my post a while back about the disappearing bees, this article sums up a lot of theories about what's going on, as well as what has been going on over the past few years regarding bee health and prosperity. The most interesting idea, I thought, was this:

"Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been crossed."

Interesting, and interestinger....

Wow...

Stick around long enough and you might learn something earth-shattering.

Take death, for example.

Common knowledge (thanks to innumerable examples in hospital dramas) is that when some has suffered cardiac arrest, you take them to hospital, get them on a resuscitation machine, jolt their heart with enough electricity to power a few TVs, then everything will be OK.

Turns out we've got it all wrong....

It takes hours for the cells in our hearts and brains to die after we 'die'. "But if the cells are still alive, why can't doctors revive someone who has been dead for an hour? Because once the cells have been without oxygen for more than five minutes, they die when their oxygen supply is resumed." Turns out the body sees the cells flooded with oxygen and does the same thing when it realises cells are infected with cancer - it flicks the 'off switch' - then we really die.

So, now we may have a new range of treatment options, involving keeping a patient alive, but not breathing per se...

An amazing read.

Following up...

Guess what folks?

The surge in Baghdad is failing spectacularly. I'm sure Bush and his cronies are trying to spin this faster than a lathe...

But don't worry, because someone made a skyline of London made completely out of food. I'm sure millions of starving children will get a kick of that.

Also, the scientists have kindly made the pill I was hoping for yesterday.

And they say there's no such thing as progress.

Bits and Pieces

The crowds react as my shower door swings open...

Firstly, 3D movies are making a comeback. By 'comeback' I mean 'with totally different technology so you don't get headaches and the effect is much MUCH better!'

Secondly, for a new kind of excess for the boor who's done it all, you can have dinner suspended 150 feet in the air... My first thought was, "Looks like there's no toilet, " and guess what - there aint.

Thirdly, the answers to many a man's prayers have been answered as scientists have developed a drug that reduces womens' weight while boosting their sex drive. Now all we need is a similar pill for us guys - especially to shift the spare tyre off to the scrapheap...

Fourthly, with another globally focussed series of concerts about to happen, time to reflect on the last one, Live8, and what it did, and more importantly, didn't achieve.

And (deep breath) fifthly, time to consider our economic future. Are we on the precipice of a grotesque decline and fall, or of a marvellous opportunity to grasp a new future?