commonwealth games

Does anyone else wonder if any of the 'Australia should be a republic' side-of-the-fence people get excited about the Commonwealth Games? Just a thought.

quote for the day:
"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

this shit is shit.

Well the insanity prevails again. In the good ol' US or A the idea has been conceived of a high-flyers smart card that will allow a streamlined and reduced security check for cashed up corporate flyers.

Smartcard Key to Flier Fast Lane is worth the read. Excerpt below:
Frequent fliers willing to be fingerprinted and background-checked may soon get their own airline screening lanes run by private companies in the nation's airports, homeland security officials say.

The Transportation Security Administration Friday sketched out broad outlines of a nationwide Registered Traveler program that relies on private companies to issue the cards and run additional screening lines, as well as set prices and develop interoperability standards.

Applicants will undergo a government background check and submit 10 fingerprints which will be encoded onto a smart card. When a cardholder enters the security lane, they will have their fingerprints compared to those stored on the card.

Yep, that'll work a treat. Considering the proven corporate links between terrorist organisations cash front companies and big business in the USA it wouldn't be a stretch in envisage a possiblity that some wrong-doer with the right connections could organise a card to get to the right wrong person. Surely it's not that big a leap to imagine.

You have to wonder why they would even have so much security if you can-given enough cash and connections-pay your way through it all or at least most of it? What's the point? Shit, terrorist threat aside, what stops a corporate high-flyer losing his or her shit at 10,000 feet like anyone else? Not much. Yep, nice to see more evidence of a world where cash rules above even common sense. But as I've said before, what the fuck do I know.

quote for the day:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

satellite cities and such nonsense

I was thinking about the Peak Oil situation some more whilst reading an interesting article at Wired News called The Backhoe - A Real Cyberthreat when I had a thought. No doubt it's not an original thought. In fact it's one that probably everyone has thought of already. It's only now that I'm up to the same page. Turn on motherfuckers and next time don't leave me hanging!

It would seem that the ability to exist as a community through want, interest and a smidgen of necessity rather than simple old geography is a solution to existing transport / fossil fuel / environmental woes. Instead of driving to work and then home again I can log-on to work with my computer. We can communicate with video. I can work on jobs with other collegues no matter where in the world they are. The Goodies hit it right on the head, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime. As long as I keep my very real physical relationships intact then I shouldn't lose my shit and go all cabin-feverish.

The only problem with this sort of setup is the organisation. Systems need to be put in place. And used. Properly. The cool thing is that most software in my field is already setup to run in a workgroup situation. Folders can be set to allow multiple users. Permissions allow the logging-in and out of files. Time and datestamping helps guide the dangerous path of redundant file usage. Granted it would be a different task being a manager but hell, the possibilites are endless. Work with the best people for you or the job rather than the best found locally.

Peak-hour traffic would still exist. Instead of traffic jams with cars we'd find our net connection would be slower in the morning and late afternoon as almost everyone would catch up on emails and then banking. No doubt anyone selling computer monitors would make a killing out of all the schmucks who used to get road-rage, now stuck venting their anger through fist-to-monitor exchanges.

Micro-cafes consisting of vans selling coffee and sushi-or whatever social cliche overtakes these in the future-would be hurtling around the 'burbs feeding the armada of home-workers.

Obviously this has already started happening but such a huge scale would be really interesting. It's effect on fossil fuels and vehicle usage would be quite dramatic. I guess sales of eye-glasses would take off, not to mention physios having to work double shifts trying to help a million more bent-over crippled computer users.

Still it's interesting to think that this social change may be necessary and yet it's evolved quite without guidence. A thing that seemed possible could become the only option. Maybe there was guidence. Probably by the same aliens that invented the pyramids and velcro.

quote for the day:
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." (from Time Enough for Love)
- Robert A. Heinlein (1907 - 1988)

the mid-week hurdle.

Well here we are on the downward side of the mountain that is the work-week yet it feels like wednesday. In search of anything to tear me away from reality i found these nuggets of gold.

:: Clip from Steve Coogan's 3rd series based around the ever-dislikable Alan Partridge. Classic.

:: Axl finally speaks about the never-appearing album Chinese Democracy. You wonder if anyone will actually care about it.

:: Stinker alert (19% at metacritic). Bloodrayne, a movie made from a game (how unique) fails to deliver even a mediocre experience to anyone. Classic. Good review here at the New York Daily News site giving Uwe Boll the bollocking he so deservedly needs. What a shite director. Check his list of crap to date for confirmation of this fact. I bet the guy was born with a 'straight to video' tattoo on his arse (surely the source of his talent). As he studied economics for a bit I have no doubt that he gets his work by knowing how to bring in a movie under budget and looking good enough in previews to sell to the poor schmucks dull enough to go see them.

quote for the day:
"By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. Thank you, thank you. Just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day they'll take root. I don't know. You try. You do what you can. Kill yourselves. Seriously though, if you are, do. No really, there's no rationalisation for what you do, and you are Satan's little helpers, OK? Kill yourselves, seriously. You're the ruiner of all things good. Seriously, no, this is not a joke. "There's gonna be a joke coming..." There's no fucking joke coming, you are Satan's spawn, filling the world with bile and garbage, you are fucked and you are fucking us, kill yourselves, it's the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show.

"You know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar, that's a big dollar, a lot of people are feeling that indignation, we've done research, huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scumbags, quit putting a godamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!"
- Bill Hicks

tubby biatch no.3

Well thanks to a lack of exercise over the two-week xmas season I pretty much lost all the good work I'd done at the gym leading up to December. Oh well. So back there I am and harder it is. Looking around at the healthy 'beautiful people' can be a morale buster if you've not got enough sleep and feel a little worse for wear. Combating life can take more energy than you've got sometimes. Luckily the ol' ipod can help with a little nugget of self-boosting.

Parabola

We barely remember who or what came before this precious moment,
We are choosing to be here right now. hold on, stay inside...
This holy reality, this holy experience. choosing to be here in...

This body. this body holding me. be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal all this pain is an illusion.

Alive

This holy reality, in this holy experience. choosing to be here in...

This body. this body holding me. be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body, this body holding me, feeling eternal all this pain is an illusion...
Of what it means to be alive

Swirling round with this familiar parable.
Spinning, weaving round each new experience.
Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this
Chance to be alive and breathing
Chance to be alive and breathing.

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality.
Embrace this moment. remember. we are eternal.
All this pain is an illusion.

- Tool (Lateralus)

quote for the day:
" I don't know if they taught you this in the land of fairies and puppy dog tails where you obviously, if not grew up, then at least spent most of your summers, but you're in the real world now! N'kay?"
- Dr Cox (Scrubs)

The Becoming

I beat my machine
it's a part of me
it's inside of me
I'm stuck in this dream
it's changing me
I am becoming

the me that you know had some second thoughts
he's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
the me that you know doesn't come around much
that part of me isn't here anymore

all pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
drowns out all I hear
there's no escape from this
my new consciousness
that me that you know used to have feelings
but the blood has stopped pumping
and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
and even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
I can try to get away
but I’ve strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away
the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away
all my bad parts
I don't want to listen
but it's all too clear

hiding backwards inside of me
I feel so unafraid
Annie, hold a little tighter
I might just slip away

it won't give up it wants me dead
goddamn this noise inside my head

- Nine Inch Nails

quote for the day:
"Be careful what you pretend to be because
you are what you pretend to be."
- Kurt Vonnegut

well, it's goodnight from me and it's goodnight from him...

Well it's done. Dusted. Signed, sealed and waiting for delivery. I've handed in my notice of resignation and in one month I shall be at the whim of the multiverse. The downward spiral starts spinning and all I have to do is work out which end I'm at and which I'm heading. Excited? Yep. Freaked out? Yep.

I have to say that quiting a job I actually enjoy at a business i've got nothing but high regard for was not easy. It is so much easier to walk from a place you neither like nor respect yet here I am leaving the best job I've ever had. My only thought being that nothing good comes easy and as my father told me once, "no decision that's easy to make wasn't really a decision at all or worth worrying about". In that frame, this was an incredibly tough call to make and should, by rights, reap a decent reward. Fingers, toes and any other appendage i'm unaware of crossed.

From February 12th 2006 Interzone Creative Solutions shall be the flag I hoist above my mainsail. From there i'll have to look at the map and sail directly to the section marked "there be dragons".

quote for the day:
"...the Self is the self's only friend and the self is the Self's only foe."
- Bhagavad Gita (part of the epic Hindu poem Mahabharata)