words and pictures

Good Design is Sustainable Design

2006-11-02T23:48:00.000+10:00

Sun's new 'datacentre in a box' product is fabulously sexy:

an all-weather, indoor/outdoor, instant-on, datacentre inside a shipping container.

It's a simply briliant design - it uses less power, much less space and it's fully recycable and refurbishable, with a commitment from Sun for responsible disposal.

Now they should publish the design as an open standard of some sort, to encourage everyone to make these things so you don't have to be a Sun shop to reap the benefits.

Project Blackbox will give customers the flexibility to move applications to optimal locations to take advantage of lower energy rates, avoid power outages, and tap cheaper, greener energy.
Customers who select a configuration with the Sun Fire CoolThreads technology-based servers will save about $1,000 a year per Sun Fire T2000 or Sun Fire T1000 server in energy costs, in addition to cost savings provided by the container's cooling advantage over existing datacenter implementations.
Sun will extend its electronic waste and hazardous material leadership by taking back Project Blackbox containers and their systems for upgrading, reuse, recycling, or responsible disposal.

Isn't it Ironic?

2006-06-03T09:21:00.000+10:00

Guess who?
Originally uploaded by daz.

(Originally from http://www.iranian.com/Pictory/2006/May/guess.html and posted to flickr for posterity)

Crazy Protestant End of the Worlders

2006-06-01T15:14:00.000+10:00

Talk2Action has the straight dope on the the upcoming video game based on the best-selling Left Behind series of crazy fundamentalist prophecy books.

"Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America... You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews... Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game...

"This game immerses children in present-day New York City -- 500 square blocks, stretching from Wall Street to Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the United Nations headquarters, and Harlem. The game rewards children for how effectively they role play the killing of those who resist becoming a born again Christian."

Unfortunately, because the last phrase is "born again christians" and not, say, "Wahabbist Muslims" this story is unlikely to get much play in the media.
It has been discussed a bit over at LP, but I think most of the commenters miss the point slightly, perhaps because they don't understand the dynamics within American Christian subcultures.

JPZ says "As far as I know, there aren’t thousands of armed militant underground Christian cells all over the planet, stocking up on weapons, conducting terrorism training, and spreading an ideology of mass murder that is, in any event, a contradiction of Christianity to begin with. But maybe there are such groups, and I’m just not on their email list."

I suggest to JPZ that there are such groups. In the US, they're called the Militia movement and it's a sickening mix of End-times/book-of-revelation-prophecy, white supremacy, and religious fundamentalism.

Have a look at Combat4Christ for instance. Or this excerpt from a Daily Kos diary describing a "Battle Cry" rally attended by 25 000 people.

But BattleCry Philadelphia was more than just a vulgar carnival designed to suck donations into the coffers of Ron Luce's corporation "Teen Mania". Indeed, it had a point, to recruit the future elite "warriors" in the coming battle against the separation of church and state. It turned dark and frightening on Saturday afternoon. After Franklin "Islam is a Wicked Religion" Graham came out to thunder against the evils of homosexuality and the Iraqi people (whom he considers to be exactly the same people as the ancient Babylonians who enslaved the tribes of Israel and deserving, one would assume, the exact same fate) we heard an explosion. Flames shot out on stage and a team of Navy Seals was shown on the big TV monitors in full camouflage creeping forward down the hallway from the locker room with their M16s. They were hunting us, the future Christian leaders of America. Two teenage girls next to me burst into tears and even I, a jaded middle-aged male, almost jumped out of my skin. I imagined for that moment what it must have felt like to have been a teacher at Columbine high school. 10 seconds later they rushed out onstage and pointed their guns in our direction firing blanks spitting flames. About 1000 shots and bang, we were all dead.

And this is at a mainstream event, featuring Franklin Graham and a message of support from George W Bush.

Look slightly further afield and you find movements like "Christian Identity" with its strong ties to the Aryan Nations Church, and "Christian Reconstructionism". Keep looking and you'll also see that they're getting better organized politically.

Subcultures are almost invisible to outsiders. I can't tell techno from electro, dub, trance, happy hardcore or what-have-you. I like a lot of electronic music, but I'm not in the culture and I can't see the subcultural divisions.

Protestantism is the same - if you've never been part of the Protestant culture, they all look pretty much the same (except for the Salvos with their snappy uniforms). And in truth, some of them are pretty much the same and many of them are, to borrow Douglas Adam's immortal phrase "mostly harmless". But some of them are sinister and dangerous.

Do not make the mistake of dismissing them out of hand as merely religious nutters. When Muslims do these sorts of things, we get all bent out of shape and start huffing and puffing about the threat to civilisation. Why do white people who call themselves Christian get a free pass?

Gillard, Abbot and Grubs

2006-05-31T22:22:00.000+10:00

There are two very good blog posts that lay out an instance of media bias very clearly. Rob Corr at Larvartus Prodeo has a wonderfully clear and concise timeline of the events. It's short, you should follow that link and read it now. I'll wait for you, really, go read it.

Now look at how the ABC presented the story. Tim Dunlop lays the problems out very neatly.

Tony Abbott is a thoroughly dislikable bully boy and prone to bursts of bad judgement. He's also a Cabinet Minister and Manager of Governement Business in the House, he holds high office of State and is by definition is one of he most respected figures in civil society.

If he calls an opposition nobody a 'sniveling grub' then that's hunky-dory. All part of the cut-and-thrust of parliamentary debate.

But if the Manager of Opposition Business in the House calls Tony a 'sniveling grub' then she's expelled for the chamber and suspended.

Why does anyone like Tony Abbott?

(fixed formatting error 1/6/06)

Al Gore

2006-05-30T19:48:00.000+10:00

There's been a bit a speculation about whether or not Al Gore is shaping up for another tilt at the Presidency in 2008. I'm not going to speculate on that, but let's have a look at his 2000 campaign and what he's done since.

In 2000, Gore was absolutely hammered by the media for things that weren't actually true. The 'I invented the internet' beat-up. Naomi Wolf advising him to 'dress in earth tones to appeal to women'. The list goes on. Whatever inadequacies his campaign may have had, the media ran right over the top of it, creating stories and 'conventional wisdom' as it went.

What's Gore done since 2000. He was a visiting professor in Journalism at Columbia University. He's the President of Current TV, he sits on the Board of Apple Computers, one of the most brand conscious companies around. He's a senior advisor to Google, who's business, when push comes to shove, is advertising.

And now he's made a critically acclaimed fillum and is spruking it 'round the traps.

Put it together and you see that Al is up to his eyeballs in the media and image business and if he were to run again, the media might find it a lot harder to control the narrative about him.

Tesla Coil!

2006-05-17T13:25:00.000+10:00

OK - here's a picture for y'all. A picture of a honking big Tesla Coil! I want one....

My favorite Tesla Coil 15000 watts.

Originally uploaded by tesla1000.

Google Maps of Rising Sea Levels

2006-05-17T12:31:00.000+10:00

A nifty google maps hack that shows where the coastline is after a raise in ocean levels.

Technorati Tags: maps, climate change

Broadband internet in Australia

2006-05-16T23:32:00.000+10:00

Labor's proposed a Government rollout of broadband internet, which I think is a pretty lame idea, but not for same reason Andrew Leigh does. Better network services are available to almost every Australian right now, Telstra's network reaches everyone but they doesn't see ubiquitous cheap access as a good business plan.

And when I talk about cheap, ubiquitous access I'm not necessarily talking about superwizzyfast Multi-megabit 'fibre-to-the-node' connections, although that'd be nice. 'Old-fashioned' services like ISDN are available almost everywhere and would provide reliable, always on, medium capacity links to almost every house and office in the country. This is a fantastic platform for service delivery and that's where the big positive externalities are, not in any particular service but delivering many services.

So if Telstra won't do it and it's in the national interest to provide this platform, why shouldn't the government nationalise the network? It was built with public money and the Government still has substantial equity. Telstra could continue as a private service provider and be free of most of regulation that currently binds them. You might also look at other layer one (physical) providers - like Optus and their HFC cable network. Aarnet and Grangenet shouldn't be off limits either.

By consolidating the national network(s) we can provide a stable foundation for all those new and exciting things we hear so much about, and encourage innovation.

The Logies' turn it up to 11.

2006-05-07T22:41:00.000+10:00

Who is this comedian fellow, who did that "six misfits trying to become Australian of the Year" series. I saw the last half of his Logies number, from just as Cathy Freeman was carried on stage and it's the most thought-provoking thing I've seen for ages.

It was a brilliantly executed and he should be nominated for the Noble Prize in comedy – unless (or even if) the joke has completely fallen flat in which case he may have to flee the country.

But leaving aside that potential and essential misjudgement that was an amazingly well performed routine involving dozens of people and the music, the libretto, the choreography etc was first rate. I mean, seriously, he had Cathy Freeman singing on stage.

And all delivered straight as a die. Like Barry Humphries playing Dame Edna, it's almost inhuman. At least Barry has the excuse that he's been doing Edna for 40 years.

It's times like these that we find out what happens when you turn it up past 10. Do you reach 11 and join Nigel Tufnel or does the dial return to zero?

Technorati Tags: Logies

Copyright

2006-05-05T00:46:00.000+10:00

One of the strange fascinations I have is copyright in all its forms.

This is thanks to Negativland, those four flop-tops from Contra Costa County, who were mercilessly sued by U2's record company for producing a parody of two U2 songs and then sued by their own record company for damages resulting from being sued by U2.

Anyway, Kim Weatherall has a post that refers to a reflection by Mike Madison about Laura Quilter's report on the Comedies of Fair Use event that featured Joy Garnett and Susan Meiselas talking about the "Joywar".

It's a great story with fantastic questions about your stuff, my stuff and our stuff (and a little bit of their stuff).

set aside a few minutes to have a look and a read and a think and tell me what you reckon in the comments.

And before anyone says anything, yes I know there's no pictures

2006-05-04T10:38:00.000+10:00

I've got my hands full just keeping up with the 'words' part at the moment.

Crazy stylesheet experiments underway.

2006-05-03T23:28:00.000+10:00

Presentation may change without warning.

Iran: why do I have an opinion about this?

2006-05-03T22:48:00.000+10:00

Tim Dunlop is wondersing about whether or not Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was installed as a puppet by the Mullahs.

Maybe it's completely backwards. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani was the mullahs' candidate in the 2005 election. After the election Rafsanjani was appointed by the Supreme Leader to chair the Expediency Council which decides all disputes between the three branches of government. The Council is also the primary advisor to the Supreme Leader on economic, political and scientific issues through a body called the Centre for Strategic Research – to which the mullahs appointed former "reforming" president Khatami.

So, if Ahmadinejad gets into a dispute with the parliament or the mullahs, the man he defeated will chair the committee that decides who wins.

Some might say it looks like the mullahs aren't real happy about Ahmadinejad being president and want him on a short leash held by their man Rafsanjani. And they want the 'reformer' he replaced, who has called for the abolition of atomic and chemical weapons, to advise the Supreme Leader on a portfolio that includes nuclear technology.

Technorati Tags: ill-informed_Speculation

Trying out Ecto

2006-04-21T13:31:00.000+10:00

Thought I'd give it a go and see if an alternative editing environment would get me postin' a bit more regularly. We'll see...

I'll be trying out different features so there may be some strange posts over the next little while.

Why on Earth does this man bother?

2006-03-14T21:45:00.000+10:00

Kim Beazley is a remarkable fellow - he simultaneously has the support of 18% of Australian voters yet a smidge under 50% of those same voters will vote to make him Prime Minister. How can one man engender such cognitive dissonance?

This was intended a short, sarcastic comment, but on reflection I have an answer to my rhetorical question.

It's clear that over at least the last 12 months, a majority of Australians have wanted a Labor government. Since March 2005 there have been 23 Morgan polls and the ALP have led on 2pp in 17 of them. Nielsen have done 13 and the ALP have led 9 times.

But how many people actually think Labor will win? Almost no-one. According to the media, the ALP have been in crisis since about 1995 and now people like Michelle Grattan are canvassing a Labor defeat in 2010!

So, if you believe the Labor party is going to lose and lose badly, would you be satisifed with the Leader's preformance?

I believe the question "are you satisfied with Howard's/Beazley's performance" actually measures what people *think* the outcome of the next election will be.

How to speak to a person with telephone banking

2006-03-09T16:11:00.000+10:00

In my mailbox today, a handy-dandy list of how to bypass the banks' "Interactive voice recordings" and go straight to a human "customer service representative"

I've only tried the first few, but they seem to work.

How to speak to a person with telephone banking
Bank	phone number	press these buttons
AussieHomeloans	13 13 33	0000
American Express	1300 132 639	0#
ANZ Bank	13 13 14	00000
BankWest	131 718	00000#
Bendigo Bank	1300 366 666	0
Citibank	13 24 84	00
Commonwealth Bank	13 22 21	000
Diners Club	1300 360 060	0
Esanda	13 23 13	00
HSBC	1300 308 880	1
ING Bank	1800 639 082	0 wait 0#
ING Direct	1800 500 240	0
National Australia Bank	13 13 12	###
RAMS Home Loans	13 72 67	000
Suncorp	13 11 34	0000
St. George Bank	13 33 30	say "Everyday Banking"
Wizard Home Loans	131 970	0
Westpac	13 19 00	0
Woolies Ezy Banking	13 72 88	0

(Is there a bottom border yet?)

Queensland Redistribution II

2006-03-04T22:27:00.000+10:00

And what of a name for the new division? I like the suggestion of Judith Wright, but there's a SA state electorate called Wright which would count against it. But from Judith my mind journeys to Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Wouldn't Oodgeroo have been a marvellous name for the seat created at the last disribution? Bowman could have stayed around Wynnum and the seat that encompasses Stradbroke Island could have been named for Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Not that Bonner isn't a fine name for a division, but if I'm right about where the new seat could go, Bonner would have been a fantastic name for the seat around Ipswich, just as Ooodgeroo would have would have suited Moreton Bay.

The Queensland Redistribution

2006-03-04T00:52:00.000+10:00

This came up the other day and I've been having a bit of a think about it, inspired by Antony Green on the NSW redistribution at Crikey and at Mumble.
Casting my eyes over the enrolments here's what I can tell.

Lilley, Bonner, Bowman,Fadden, Moncrieff and McPherson don't need to be touched which gives a nice edge to the propagation of changes. Griffith needs to drop a couple of thousand but they could be added to Bonner without any trouble. Oxley, Rankin, Forde, Groom and Blair, however, need to lose between 5000 and 10 000 electors each, so there's a swag of extra voters there.

At the other end of the map most of the Northern seats need to shrink as well. Kennedy, Leichardt, Dawson, Capricornia, Hinkler, Wide Bay should also drop at least 5000 each, so they'll all shrink a little and shuffle north. Fairfax through Dickson are all about right, but Peterie's too big so there'll be some boundary movements.

But the net result looks like Blair is where the action is going to be - with the new seat taking either it's northern or southern end.

What I'm listening to

2006-02-11T00:05:00.000+10:00

Still the Wicked soundtrack and the Polyphonic Spree. Marvellous stuff.

Bush Was 'Re-elected By Porsche Drivers'

2006-02-10T23:09:00.000+10:00

From the Daily Telegraph back in DEC 2004 - an interesting bit of self promotion with a nasty partisan and misleading slap at the end.

[The Republicans used] market research more normally reserved for the launch of a new soap powder or soft drink, they drew up a database indicating the likely political persuasion of every consumer, based on car brands, hobbies and favourite television programmes.
Research showed that the most Republican car was Porsche Having found America's water-skiing, golf-loving Porsche drivers, they then persuaded them to vote. Bush strategists told the New York Times that they targeted advertising minutely, sending advertising dollars to small, sometimes, tiny niche broadcasters and media outlets - from religious and country music radio outlets, to video screens hanging in a chain of gymnasiums.

Clever and most probably true. No indication about whether it was effective, but it's a good idea. Now check this out:

Out of 34 recreational activities studied, only three were solid Democratic indicators: dancing, casino gambling and antique-shopping.
At any given time, Democrats were 15 per cent more likely to be watching television than Republicans, with top Democratic programmes being game shows and celebrity court cases.

Ouch! These results are so meaningless for so many reasons, but it's a cute finish, and one the "Republican backrrom wizards" are no doubt very pleased with.

Still, it's interesting. I wonder how effective it is, or would be here?

Feel the tingle in your fingers...

2006-01-29T23:14:00.000+10:00

X came home singing "Daddy started out in San Francisco, Tootin' on his trumpet loud and mean" a song from her school choir's repertoire. That's all she knew, and I was driven up the wall trying to remember what came next or the chorus or the title or whatever.

But through the magic of Google, I "remembered" that the song is Rhythm of Life from "Sweet Charity". A great song, but a bit tricky for a 9 - 12yo choir I would have thought. I really should find a way to get involved with the school music deptartment and find out.

Sweet Charity's other big song is Hey Big Spender. I've known both of these songs for a long time, but it never occurred to me that they were from musicals, let alone the same musical. So I'm now quite interested in the show and I'm keen to see the 1969 movie with Shirley MacLean in the title roles. Add it to the list.

And what do I come across while flicking through the CDs at Borders? The Original Broadway Cast Recording of the 2005 Sweet Charity revival starring Christina Applegate! It's not in the database for the listening posts as the moment so I couldn't give it a test run, but oooh! I'm quite a Christina Applegate fan... or at least, I was, way back when.

What I'm Listening To

2006-01-29T22:21:00.000+10:00

I'm less than one minute into the first track on Together We're Heavy, and The Polyphonic Spree sound amazing. Find it, have a listen. How I wish I had driven to Byron to see them on that moonless Monday night so long ago.

I've also been flogging the Wicked soundtrack, which is brilliant.

In for a Penny, In for 0.45kg

2006-01-26T04:34:00.000+10:00

John Quiggin and Belle Waring both have posts up about the metric system and the USA's reluctance to convert. John's reflecting on efficency issues, starting with currency - America has too many low-value coins and notes, and no high value coins which is a pain. I agree with him, and I'd add also that there are problems with the design of the notes, where all denominations are the same size and colour and all look just about exactly the same. The biggest problems are with vision impared people, but there's bound to be confusion all around.

The coin efficency problem is rather interesting, actually and it look likes John doesn't know about Jeffery Shallit's work on it. Currently, the US has 1, 5, 10 and 25¢ coins (there are 50¢ and $1 coins, but people don't like them and avoid using them. There's also a two dollar bill, but that's not important right now). These four values lead to an average of 4.7 coins being needed to give change in any transaction. But, replace the 10¢ piece with an 18¢ coin and the average number of coins needed drops to under 3.9! Or add a 32¢ coin to the existing lineup and the average drops to under 3.5 coins!

Naturally, I'm all for it. Particularly if they do it in the US rather than Australia, but I'd love to know what the optimal coinage is for us. Another thing to add to The List.

But back to the USA and the Metric system. I'm a bit surprised that among the hundreds of comments across the posts, nobody seems to have noted that the US is *officially* on the metric system and since about 1893 all the imperial measures are defined in terms of their metric/SI counterparts!

The NIST website has all the details.

What an age we live in: Captain Kirk sells kidney stone for $25k

2006-01-18T21:15:00.000+10:00

In today's news, "William Shatner has sold a kidney stone for USD$25 000 to online casino "Golden Palace". You remember this mob, they bought the Virgin Mary Toasted Cheese Sandwich.

Among the other things they have bought (http://www.goldenpalaceevents.com/auctions/)

$18,000 to shave a woman’s head and permanently tattoo “GoldenPalacePoker.com” on her bare cranium.

$10,000 for the authentic bandage that was used to treat the head injury of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from the 1973 October War.

$650,000 for the right to name the new species of monkey discovered in western Bolivia’s Madidi National Park.

$202.50 to a woman in the Midwest U.S. for two photos of her breasts. The seller has recently been diagnosed with Stage 3 Breast cancer, and needs some money to help pay her medical bills.

Brisbane Your Rights at Work protest

2005-11-23T11:31:00.000+10:00

IR Protest
Originally uploaded by Tigaloo.

Here's a nice pic of the protest