Hidden Messages

Here’s the viral for Folklore on PS3. You really need to have the volume on whilst watching this. After the line “An Enchanted World” appears on the screen you can pretty much make out a child’s angry voice whispering something about global warming- I won’t tell you what it is, but it’s very poignant- no idea what it has to do with the game however…

Just When You Thought The Mini Adverts Couldn’t Get Any Stranger…

Check out The Other View, no idea what is going on but they have a countdown timer- new design perhaps?

Terminators: Now A Reality

Robot Cannon Kills 9 – Wired News

The South African National Defence Force “is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday.”

I hate to say I told you so, but this kind of thing is probably going to become more common with the rise of anti-personnel robots.

However, how much worse can it really get if we take weapons out of the hands of humans and place them with machines? It may just be a case of trading the cause and intent from corruption to malfunction.

RSS Clearout: September 2007

The time has arrived again that I do a mad dash to comment at least one line on what piqued my interest last month. Unfortunately due to changing circumstances which will be ongoing for the next couple of months, I only have time to put up the first part of the month so here it is:

Scientific Enquiry

A video of the Stanford Prison experiment on YouTube. Many have pondered and discussed the ramifications of the experiment, the morals, the ethics, the reasons that seemingly peace loving hippies turned into Nazis within the space of a few days. Here’s what I think, they were too soft! I mean who’s really going to sit in a prison cell and forget it’s part of an experiment? The first time someone showed signs of perversity and domination, I would remind them that I’m a volunteer and then kick their ass, that’s what.

Amazingly accurate prediction of technology in 1966.

Holy Flat-Earth Theory, Batman

Would you believe those crazy creationists! They still think the earth is flat.

Oh look… heh, heh, heh… Scripture candy.

Goats help us avoid another 9/11… no, not really but it just sounds more interesting.

No… seriously… the earth is flat!

Jurustic Park, where creatures from a long forgotten (Iron) age are once again brought to life realistically.

The latest course on offer at American university, Indoctrinate U: Consensus Science.

Outrage… a Vicar instructing his flock on how to go about their lives, and the audacity to use Powerpoint! Something must be done to stop religion from being so threatening. No wonder the government banned Powerpoint use in private companies… wait… they didn’t?

Cranmer offers some insight into Iain Dales religion survey.

Those terrible Amish with their religion of hate are at it again!

Over at SharperIron Michael Osborne discusses Papal infallibility.

Political Expediency

TfL: “Hey, why not walk today!”, Phil Taylor blogged the tube strike, and the painfully slow end of the strike.

Gavin Ayling gives us another fine example of the police demonstrating it’s one rule for us, another rule for them.

Britain is now offering a DNA amnesty to the citizens of the world, sign up to become part of the great database.

CPS Prosecutor Malcolm Christy proves that there’s no lack of intelligence at the CPS: “If, however, anything can be gained from this case, it is its use as an example of the tragic consequences of using knives as weapons.” Genius! Why doesn’t the government just make a law that we all have to use pin cushions to slice our bread? How many lives would be saved if, in a fit of anger, someone reached for the pin cushion and attempted to stab their sibling?

Will you sign the environMENTAL petition banning water? Many environMENTALISTs will, as proved by Penn & Teller. Also showing us how to live contradictory lifestyles… Freegans. Next they’ll be telling us vegetarianism is good for the environMENT… oops spoke too soon.

Let’s hope that this ‘dog is more of a pitbull than a poodle and now it’s sunk it’s teeth in, it won’t let go.

Matt G has the summary of the spat between UCCF and NUS over the selection of Christian Union leaders. Reading through the guidelines, it does appear to me that, though CUs have the ability to restrict appointment of leadership to members of the Union, the Union itself should implicitly be open for anyone to become a member (at least that’s my interpretation). Will this work, who knows? I wanted to blog about this issue for a long time, but I’ll summarise my thoughts right now. Take a look people, these are your future politicians, scientists, business and community leaders years from now. 1 persons complaint led to this completely blown up fiasco, a pertinent question that should be asked is what are these ‘leaders’ of the Students Union going to do when they get out into the big wide world and start writing policies? It’s scary to think about- however I see it positively, the church always grows best when under persecution and we are closer to illegal, underground house-churches in England than you would think.

Prabhu Guptara experiences America’s Stupidocracy.

Here’s an example of why I don’t like Gordon Brown as prime minister, but am weary about voting for someone like Blair 2.0 David Cameron. Like an obvious opportunist, he jumps on the bandwagon of the Northern Crock disaster, yet does he mention anything about Browns record with the economy? Does he give any meaningful reasons why this has happened? More importantly, what does he offer as a solution or that he would do better? No, no, nothing.

Ortho gives us a list of nonsensical political platitudes, or, in other words they could be described as George Bush’s list of press conference bylines.

The War Against Pirates

There’s something familiar about the tactics used by the American administration and those of big video/music companies in attempting to enforce their copyrights. Inevitably, it’s the innocents who get hurt, whilst the opposition gets stronger. Yet they do not learn do they? Repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

The Canadian Recording Artists Industry (Canada’s answer to the RIAA) decides that suing people gets more money than simply taxing them?

Death by Internets

Been cyberstalked? Just be glad it wasn’t Russell Tavares.

L
WTC had an interesting conversation with David Shayler. Yes the David Shayler, once respectable ex-MI5 officer and conspiraloon, who dropped ‘conspira’ and just turned loon when he declared himself to be the Messiah. A pity, he seems quite an intelligent man.

Think your password is safe? Probably not, ask Jeff Atwood.

An incredible 249 (and still going?) comments were left on Cecilieaux’s blog when he posted one post about FJL (who is now by the way sticking to much less inflammatory blog topics of late). His follow-up post generated 114- still astronomical by regular standards.

Out There

Jesus Land

Another elitist spits out his dummy.

A road to Damascus moment?

Awesome War of the Worlds online comic from Dark Horse!

24 Weeks

In an unofficial follow-up to my previous post on the subject 9×4 there is one more point I want to make about the subject.

I notice scientists in the UK are currently debating the 24 week period that allows killing termination of the unborn child organism.

Obviously those scientists for lowering the 24 week limit are just barmy creationists, peddling bunk science and conspiring to lower the intelligence of the UK on the whole.

I make no effort to hide the fact that I am in favour of abortion. However, I argue that the abortion lobby, a lobby of cowards do not go far enough! Isn’t it a mothers right to decide at any time what happens to the creature she is to or indeed has already begotten?

That’s why I argue for full-term abortion. I believe mothers should be given up to at least the age of 5 years to decide if they want to terminate the fetus or not.

But aside from all the blown-up social and human rights contextualising, the debate rests on the survivability, that is, the viability of the non-baby organism.

Those advocating 24 weeks and higher quite rightly point out that the odds of the non-baby organism is not likely to survive outside the womb without assistance.

After all, do you know of, or have you ever seen a 9 month old external fetus that is able to survive outside of the womb by itself? What about a 2 year old? a 5 year old? Would any of these external fetus’s manage to survive for long without the assistance of adults?

The fact is that the odds of any fetus surviving outside the womb up to the age of 5 years has absolutely no chance of surviving without assistance from adults!

Apparently, in the UK our chances of living to age 65 are somewhere around 80% presumably this represents the percentage of the population who have never needed the assistance of a doctor, nurse or third-party for survival.

Rather than diagnose our problems then subscribe a cure (e.g. medication) or solution (e.g. wheelchair) perhaps doctors should instead focus on determining our viability on a Bayesian scale and determine if we will be able to continue to survive without assistance?

Think about all the costs that would be saved for the NHS and public services!

Start with the disabled’s – let’s get rid of them if they can’t survive without machinery, services and other people to provide those services- total drain on our time and resource.

Next, the elderly, if they can’t feed themselves or move without assistance, then that certainly reduces their viability. Unburden the children and terminate them- they have no use in modern society and interfere with our busy lives.

Viability tests should not just be limited to physical ability- it should also extend to mental ability. The mentally ill obviously can’t survive without assistance and the care and attention of others. Terminate them all.

Then we should also focus on criminals. Why bother with prisons? If someone cannot function in society and break a law lets do away with them. There is obviously a gene or something that causes them to be that way and there’s no arguing with genes. (While we’re at it, why not just analyse genes at birth for criminal potential and eliminate the problem at it’s source).

But we are still not done solving societies ills: Religion. The religious are dangerous extremists, every day they are plotting a new wars or devious ways to kill us all. Those that aren’t plotting- the moderates- they are simply aiding the extremists by not plotting. The government should of course interview all religious people and if they renounce their faith then they are entitled to live, but if they don’t then immediate termination.

Finally, we should aid the human race by getting rid of all human weakness. Successfully purging potential children that would threaten our independence, the infirm, the elderly, the mentally ill, the criminal mind and the religious monsters is not enough. We should focus on emotions as well as physical and mental abilities. Those who display weak emotions, those who have emotional needs and depend on others are also, to some degree, incapable of survival without others. If they don’t commit suicide (Which we should offer to assist), then termination is the answer.

Perhaps this post should be entitled 1984.
Perhaps I have digressed, or my ‘final solution’ sounds like a tinfoil hat wearing conspiraloon. However I haven’t just made these up. I have seen people echo these ideas when debating- seemingly rational people who have no idea what they are suggesting!

They do not use words like ‘extermination’ and ‘purge’ but they come very, very close. For example, when was the last time you heard someone utter about a group of people they should ‘get rid of the lot of them’ or ‘ban them’? Does anyone stop to question how you would ‘get rid’ or ‘ban’ such things?

If you are going to justify abortion in terms of viability and personal choice, then why stop there, why not go the whole 9 yards?

End Note:
I’m aware of the argument for rape cases or danger to the health of the mother, as far as I’m concerned I’d never pressurise any woman to go through with birth. However any woman who does choose to go ahead in these circumstances is not only a brave woman, but worthy of honour and respect for her self-sacrifice.

New Barcardi Viral

The new Barcardi ‘Made to Mix – Bass Tins’ viral below.

I was contacted a few days ago (in previous comments) to ask if I was prepared to show some viral advertising on the blog.

I’ve signed up now, so, on occasion I’ll try to feature both good and relevant ones. Also, will have to work on my keywords.

The New Music

Three cheers for Radiohead. I’ve never bought an album or really listened to their music, however, in a move that defies and oversteps the fan-punishing MAFIAA, Radiohead have released their new album “In Rainbows” for free download over from teh interwebs.

click here and place your free order for Radiohead: In Rainbows.

Why is this a good move, you ask? Well imagine someone like me, a non-fan of Radiohead, but now I have a chance to listen to an album for free. If I like what I hear, I may be tempted to buy an album (yes p2p people still do buy albums if they’re good/have extra content)!

What’s more, I think this business model has the possibility to generate more cash for bands than the MAFIAA. I haven’t worked out any figures but here’s a guesstimate:

Old Model

• Album Sales: Limited to already fans (and we know people who buy CDs/DVDs obey the law and don’t share with their friends).
• Merchandise Sales: Limited to fan base
• Concert Sales: Limited to fan base
• Profit = MAFIAA: 90% Band: 10%

New Model

• Album Sales: 0 potential sales/low revenue, infinite potential fans
• Merchandise Sales: Infinite potential from open fan base
• Concert Sales: Sellout potential from open fan base
• Profit = MAFIAA: 0% Band: 100%

Based on on the new model, bands could easily recoup and even surpass their profits based on the old model!

This is exactly how George Lucas made his fortune by owning the merchandise rights to the Star Wars franchise, which enabled him to go on to produce 3 new movies (yes the reasoning and quality can be argued but,) and convert millions of new fans.

I hear that Nine Inch Nails are doing something similar, this is another band I haven’t heard many tracks from so I’m going to download all the music I can from NIN and sample that too.

Jesus Loves Paparazzi Whore

I’m finding hardly any time to blog with the amount of training I’m doing at the moment, and little time to rest either, but I did get to see an interesting program on BBC3 last night: Singing With The Enemy.

It’s not normally something I’d be interested in, but I found this episode fascinating due to the fact they were featuring a contemporary Christian band: Dweeb from Nexus in coventry (I also know a couple of people who attended this music college) and a punk rock band called Parazzi Whore, who feature lesbians and strippers as part of their lineup.

I tuned in and prepared to roll my eyes violently at the faux collaboration that the BBC had pulled together (obviously in order to generate some conflict for their mockumentary). What I found myself watching instead was 4 very earnest and very real Christian lads who came across credible and sincere. They handled the whole situation tactfully, not wanting to compromise their principles whilst at the same time trying not to project their faith onto PW or cause them conform.

In fact they’re message was so clear and they were so consistent in their attitudes and beliefs that when lead singer, Tim, read a verse from the bible (during their turn performing) that poledancer Suzy (who was also PW’s lead singer Nicky’s lesbian lover) experienced feeling what she described as falling in love. Discussing this with Dweeb, who had been praying for PW, they affirmed that they believed that what she felt was the love of God.

Suzy decided she could no longer continue with PW but was quick to point out this was her own decision, that it felt like she was following her destiny and it was completely her own choice. The last part of the program saw Suzy walking towards a church as the BBC explained she was “still following her spiritual path”. There was no brainwashing, evangelising or advantage taking involved- she was not shown to have joined Dweeb or even be taken into their church fellowship.

I had to hand it to Dweeb, they had shown themselves to be true to their faith and to Jesus. God clearly worked through them to reveal a little bit of himself to Suzy, and hopefully, she will discover more of God and be able to lead others in the way.

But it actually made me stop and think. It made me want to re-examine my own relationship with God and try to live more consistently. I have become very self reliant and independent, unfortunately this makes it harder for me to look for help from above when I need it.

God, I need you.