Response Function

15 Facts about China that will Blow Your Mind

2010-06-10T13:09:00.000+08:00

Some of them really will, some of them will just make you sad.

It's always time for TED

2010-06-10T11:33:00.002+08:00

So theres new ted talks out (all the time, ostensibly). Some of the highlights for me were the following talks:

Elizabeth Pisani: Sex, Drugs, and HIV - Let's Get Rational

Self confessed "public health nerd" (complete with glasses and all) talks about two things that make people completely irrational, sex and drugs, and why we should just damn well be more rational about them.

Graham Hill - Weekday Vegetarian

Graham Hill of TreeHugger.com very briefly says that we could massively reduce our carbon footprint by giving up meat on weekdays (this is about a 70% reduction). I have actually been inspired to get in on this, so watch out for info on that soon.

Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks

Nicholas Christakis talks about social networks (not Social Networking!) and the truly profound influence of the social network that we inhabit can and does have on our lives. Amazing stuff.

Bill Gates - Innovating to Zero

Bill gates advertises the concept of the Travelling Wave Reactor as an example of a green (low carbon output) energy source - i was astounded to learn that its possible to fission U-235 and get alot of energy, AND that the waste can be put back into the reactor.

Enlightening stuff! Here were some other standouts:

The Dangers of Science Denial, How We Wrecked the Oceans

Katy Perry, Arbiter of Taste and Wisdom, Judges the Gaga.

2010-06-10T11:10:00.002+08:00

If you read her twitter account, its apparent that Katy Perry is entirely unamused by the new Lady Gaga video. In the style of Madonna, Lady Gaga uses catholic imagery to shock and entertain her 'little monsters', but according to Katy who has never done anything cheap or tasteless in her entire career, "using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke."

Thats right sweetie.

The Future of Hollywood Blockbusters is Pornographic?

2009-12-11T15:55:00.003+08:00

So In the ostensible aftermath of the Blu-Ray / HD-DVD format wars, there are many things on which to ruminate. Perhaps the most interesting of which, for me at least, is the almost complete indifference towards this latest revolution in data transmission from the pornography community. A quick glance at the online catalog of any sex shop will highlight an almost complete absence of anything in a post-DVD format (in addition to the exorbitant prices people are willing to pay for 90 minutes of hardcore porn!).

Its a popular anecdote that the Beta Max/VHS format wars were strongly influenced by the pornography industry (although, contrary to the anecdote was by no means the primary influence) but it presently shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in upgrades to its distribution. The obvious answer to this would have been noted by anybody who, during their cursory investigation of said pornography sales websites, observed the prevalence of digital or on-demand streaming video.

The distribution model of the modern pornography industry features heavily the area of digital content distribution; from paid movie downloads, on-demand streaming content, subscription services, and so called 'live shows'. This attitude towards content distribution offers a variety of content from traditional porn movies, to essentially episodic entries, and live one-off (usually streamable, and often available in HD) shows and the paralells to the content produced by mainstream media are quite obvious.

This begs the possibility that the pornography industry will have the last laugh in the precession of format wars by heralding the future of media distribution in a digital age. There is no reason that television studios cant sell subscriptions to a particular 'channel' or even to an individual show. Shows that are filmed in front of a live audience can easily parallel the live shows of pornography, and this opens up a great deal of potential options for audience interaction in the form of polling, response to viewer figures, and phenomenalisation along the lines of the omnipotent "audience" in Big Brother style TV.

In an age where digitalisation of television is more an more common (in the form, for example, of web television, online support material for traditional television, and internet miniseries that presage an eventual television show) clearly commercial broadcasting is not so far behind pornography. Will Hollywood soon bow to the inexorable will of progress? With the preponderance of home cinemas, fanfilms, and low budget movie success stories, a transition to smaller budget films and some form of digital subscription or pay-per-download (perhaps streaming movies for those lucky enough to have the bandwidth) system seems mandated as the ever-increasing cost of big-budget movies that completely fail to impress makes for a dull movie season. An explosion in low-budget digital movies distributed via the internet could well see a renaissance in the art (and artifice) of film making.

In this uncertain and evolving future of entertainment one thing is certain; I need to upgrade my internet connection.

2008-12-10T05:36:00.006+09:00

Steven surveys the SIM beamline endstation

First Step: Coffee

Steven reviews some scans

More Coffee!!

Steven gazes upon the console, and it was good.

Our work here is declared a success: very niiiice :D

2008-12-10T05:35:00.000+09:00

ARRIVED!

2008-12-10T05:32:00.002+09:00

Frankfurt Flughhaffen Banhoff (airport trainstation)

mischief on the train

We're off to see the wizard!

2008-12-10T05:13:00.002+09:00

Flight much?

And in Frankfurt!

Im leaving on a Jetplane

2008-12-04T00:30:00.002+09:00

And Steven is coming with me. he is a red-tailed black cockatoo and he is endangered. I figured this was a better reason to take him with me than the fact that sophie told me to.

This photo was from my going away soiree, and more will follow - watch this space!

Lockpick Pornography

2008-09-11T10:32:00.002+08:00

Hey all, an important announcement: Joey Comeau who is one half of A Softer World and an excellent author in his own right, has recently made his novella 'Lockpick Pornography', a "genderqueer adventure story", available for download as a .pdf

I seriously suggest that anyone with an interest in well written fiction at least gives the first few chapters a go. The "about this book" reads as follows:

I feel better than I have in days. I want to make bumper stickers for politicians and gay rights advocates. They'll read "My other pro-tolerance message is also condescending."

I want to destroy something.

I'm tired of the moral high ground. We've already got more than our share of gay Gandhis. We need a General Patton.

No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.

I feel the way bank robbers must feel just before they go out on that last big job that ends up getting them all killed.

That is to say, optimistic.

Fanning the Flames of Faggotry

2008-08-12T19:14:00.005+08:00

So, as some of you may or may not know, I have certain predilections that are not the norm. Which is to say, I am a flaming homosexual. Now, this isn't immediately apparent to some people - I have even been outright accused of lies when revealing my ass banditry to casual acquaintances (I kno rite?).

However, This post is going to be a monument to all future disbelievers. I was inspired to construct this post when i was pondering the following dilemma: "I want to change the day that i wash and shampoo my hair from a gym day (monday, wednesday, friday) to a non-gym day (tuesday, thursday, saturday) since both these activities are on a 'day on, day off' cycle and its inconvenient to have to do both on the same day. Do I A) Wash my hair two days in a row and risk over-washing and damaging my hair, or do I B) skip a day, and suffer manky hair for 24 hours."

THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS OKAY?

So here i present photographic proof of my homosexuality - I give you: The contents of my bathroom!

We have here in order: Mouthwash, replacement Mouthwash, Salon Shampoo, Salon Conditioner, Moisturising Shaving Cream, three consecutive pairs of Exfoliating Cream and Facial Cleanser, Toothbrush/Toothpaste, Deodorant Stick, Calvin Klein after shave balm, Q-tips with ear cleaner sitting on top of it, Hair Product stacked on top of its replacement, Dental Floss, Cleansing Facial Wipes, Calvin Klein Cologne, Body Hair Clippers, Shower Gel, and Razor.

And there you have it: The condensed result of my sexual identity.

Why Science?

2008-08-07T11:19:00.008+08:00

So, as someone who would consider themselves a professional 'scientist', I often think about what this means to other people and generally, I don't like the reality of the situation. People who ask you what you do for a living, expecting (generally from your appearance, as a scientist) the answer to be "professional alcoholic" or "homeless person". Yet they are STILL disappointed when the answer is Scientist - sure they look surprised at first (mostly because you don't reek of booze, i think) but you can see in their eyes that you may as well have said "checkout service person".

THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE!

Today I lay out for you the majesty of science! Scientists are totally awesome, they have the power to create, to destroy, the power of life and death, the power to smash or combine the very building blocks of the universe! I start this exposition with photographs of two prominent scientists from the last century: Stephen Hawking, and Alberto Einstein

Stephen Hawking creates the universe. (Artists Illustration)

File photo of Albert Einstein splitting the first atom. Note his skillful and SCIENTIFIC use of the atomic whip.

Science is ultimately about doing the things you really like and being really, REALLY, obsessed with them. Professionally. Every day, I go to Uni and read books (which i love) which contain obscure and complicated mathematics (which i love), that describe the awesome phenomena you can find in crystal solids (which i love). Then i get to play around on computers (which i love) and whiteboards (which i kind of like) crafting theories and modelling results that describe real world phenomena. HOW CAN THIS NOT BE TOTALLY SWEET?

And that's the crux of it, really. Scientists focus their attentions on the facts of everyday life that REALLY interest them, and try and explore them to the absolute fullest. They craft theories like an artist paints upon canvas, they write about their results like a Pulitzer prize winning author crafts his life's great novel, and they model their results like a truly classical work of sculpture. Take for instance, cosmology: I will be the first to admit that I don't really like astrophysics, because i think they don't have enough evidence to go on in order to draw most of the conclusions that they do. Its not their fault though, they are working on (literally) the universes greatest inverse problem. However, based on the truly MAMMOTH volumes of data produces by the worlds radio, microwave, visual, and infra-red telescopes, cosmologists have inferred that the universe started in one giant explosion. They then created a theory of universal evolution based on this premise, and it accurately predicts things like the cosmic microwave background, galactic clusters, accelerating universal expansion, and several other important pieces of data that have been observed. Of course, like any inverse problem there are actually an INFINITE number of possible solutions, but using a great deal of artistry and intuition, you can reduce these to a finite number of plausible solutions. And some not so plausible solutions.

And in relation to this, I would like to dispel one very popular myth: "Science is easy, because theres only one correct answer".Yeah, in an ideal deterministic world, that would be true. But we haven't lived in a deterministic world since one creative fellow introduced a decidedly postmodern view of science that made people sit up and go "shit, you mean its simply a possibility?". The reality is that on some level, all of science is an inverse problem - in many casual 'everyday' cases, the phase space of all possible answers to a physical problem may be 'infinite', but it is confined to so small an area of solution space that you are talking about a difference between "what goes up, must come down (for sufficiently small values of up)" and "what goes up, will most likely come down (for sufficiently small values of up) in all such cases of observation as we are likely to make in the lifetime of the universe". And if you are going to argue those kinds of semantics, then i have a very special friend I would like you to meet. Many scientists have staked their reputations on a plausible answer to a question, which has then later turned out to be otherwise - and still other scientists have tossed away their reputations on sloppy answers to 'straightforward' questions. Occam's Razor is a highly useful tool, but it takes a lot of wisdom to be able to decide what is simple, and what is deceptively simple.

So I will put this to you: Go out today, find yourself a scientist, and congratulate him/her/it for following their passions, and pursuing art in its most awesomely fun form. Or better yet - try some science yourself!

From the Ashes of Your Unglory

2008-08-04T20:01:00.006+08:00

So, I read this blog today by a guy who i have chatted to before, but wouldn't really know from a bar of soap (I didn't even know he had a blog till someone else linked me to it). but, and I say this with as much dignity and maturity as I can muster;

OMIGOSHWTFBBQ AWESOMEST BLARGOSPHERE ON THE WHOLE INTARBLARGS!

So, I hope anyone who might read this goes there and checks it out.

I say this as I am at uni, STARVING, but unwilling to go home and eat just because I dint have the Internet at home at the moment. And when I say "just because I don't have the Internet at home (at the moment)", I probably mean "I don't have MSN at home, and id kind of like to chat to this guy on there. Maybe. A little...". But that's basically the same thing.

I went to club med also, for a nice family holiday, and I collected some photos and videos which I will share in the fullness of time. Currently though, I have to write my PhD candidacy which is a formal proposal and summary/timeline of what i want to do for the next 3 year. Quite honestly, I think its a gigantic waste of time, having as it does such amazingly pertinent questions as "What ethical issues do you envisage arising in the course of your research?" and the very notion of having to timeline THE NEXT THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE is totally ludicrous. The best ethical issue i could come up with is that my work will lead (in a very tiny increment) to a better understanding of high temperature superconductivity, which subsequently leads to the development of room temperature superconductors, which in turn leads to a revolution in the world energy market and destabilizes the world economy, for which I would be directly responsible (sort of...). At the moment I am sticking with "It is envisaged that no ethical issues will be encountered during the course of this research" and having done with it.

Uni is also buying me a laptop, so I decided to go absolutely apeshit on peripherals and ask for a monitor, a docking station, an external keyboard and a printer. If I don't get to own it, I may as well enjoy the hell out of it while I'm using it. It will be nicely complemented by the new gaming rig I'm going to purchase with my upcoming tax return - a computer that will be phenomenally powerful that it will shake the very foundations of the cosmos.

The Cosmos. If you look closely, you can see the blur caused by its foundations shaking.

In the wake of the Australian release of the almighty iPhone I decided to put aside my abject loathing for all things Apple, and surrender to the feeling that i got in my pants every time i saw the iPhone on TV. Unfortunately for Apple, its evil corporate douchebaggery got in between me and defection - My mobile phone service provider 3 did not get the iPhone (despite a substantial petition that it put forward) and the enormously anticompetetive attitude of apple ,whereby it is only available on 24 month plans, and not for outright purchase (the approximate cost of buying out an iPhone and breaking a 24 month contract is $1200 AUS) resulted in me springing for the remarkably similar LG Viewty U990. The Viewty is a nice touch screen phone, which it took me a little while to warm to, but as you can see below, stacks up quite well against the iPhone.

And with that, I believe I am done

Hacksaw Versus Penis - A Spectators Perspective

2008-05-25T16:58:00.000+08:00

Spam Ahoy!

2008-05-10T11:40:00.003+08:00

Anchor

An anchor is an object, often made out of metal, that is used to attach a ship to the bottom of a body of water at a specific point. There are two primary classes of anchors—temporary and permanent.

Anchorage

An anchorage is a place where a ship lies at anchor.

Anchroage is Tim's Blog

clicky:

Kangaroos man

2008-05-10T02:32:00.000+08:00

So like, yeah.

Mister Potato Head...

2008-02-22T18:20:00.000+09:00

How were you ever NOT creepy?

Joanna Newsom, I Love Your Music

2008-02-21T01:14:00.000+09:00

But your mouth opens SO VERY WIDE

Are you an alien? I wont tell anyone if you are.