“I think I like what I don’t know about you”
Monthly Archive for January, 2008
You can imagine my surprise when I arrived at a customer site this morning to find none other than good old Johnny Farnham belting out the little speakers we have here in the office with "You’re the Voice".
Apparently it was a big hit here. I’m not sure which question comes first, How? or Why? I’m still trying to understand…..
The chances are, that right now, somewhere in the world, something incredibly, incredibly unlikely is happening.
I like that thought.
Robin and I just launched a new movie blog. We are both buffs (me more amateur than him) and thought it would be good to not only track what each other are watching, but let you guys know too.
You might be wondering why on earth this blog is on “Sixteen O Six”.. well.. my mate Daniel wanted to blog on our own domain instead of blogging on wordpress.com Problem these days that is quite difficult to find a cool domain name that is free. So as the aussie type of guy that he is, he discovered that in 1606 Australie was found by the dutch!
“In March 1606 the Duyfken, a small ship owned by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), that had been sent out to explore the unknown waters south of New Guinea, chanced upon unknown territory. The continent that captain Willem Jansz had “found”, was Australia. ”
That was Australia and Hollands first collaboration, and this is our latest!
So! There you have it! What will this blog be about then? It’s gonna be about the movies that we watch and what we think of them..
If the Dutch are amazing Ice Skaters. I remember going skating with Petra and her family last winter, and I learnt never to do it again. Not only did every member of her family appear to be Olympic standard, but every other person, including the 2 year olds, also looked Olympic standard.
To feel better, with Winter well and truly here, I thought I would dig up Australia’s greatest moment on ice. It’s a clip that shows an Aussie triumphing in the most Aussie of circumstances.
So, Stephen Bradbury, I salute you sir!
I can hold my head up in Holland thanks to your stunning Olympic Gold victory. Aus As!
Reading up about it, the thing that surprised me was that he actually got through the the final by winning a semi-final in very similar circumstances. So it wasn’t a fluke! <Grin>
No, this is not a trailer for the latest action blockbuster from Hollywood, this is instead an advert for a political campaign. Now apart from feeling like my intelligence is being assaulted, I think this reveals a great deal about the mentality of the electorate in America.
Politicians, though more Republican politicians, run their campaigns on the basis of fear. With the direct result being more votes for them, and a growth in a fear of America throughout the rest of the world.
Since 9/11 America has been a very confusing place for those of us on the outside, and I wonder how much of that is because of decisions made out of a fear that we simply don’t feel. What would the world look like today if the Bush administration were not provided with such an incredible "enemy" (terrorism) on which to focus and build fear upon, a practice demonstrated perfectly here by the Republican front runner.
I always think back to the time when I was in the US and Anthrax was being sent through the post. This "attack" lasted for several weeks, and did in fact kill 5 people. Of course that is 5 too many, but through the entire time I was there, which was around 2 weeks, the news networks provided updates constantly. Most of the time of course there was no additional information to offer, but it made me feel like I was personally, directly and unavoidable at risk.
When I contrast this to the way London responded to the bombing of the underground, that is a message of "Please go about your business as normally as is possible, the police are handling it", I can quickly see which offers the healthier and more rational response.
Of course this could also have something to do with the quality of the media, the good old beeb making the blatantly right-wing Fox News network look like the tabloid it is. Don’t believe me?
A traffic cam in India.
Videos like this would be made every year for the Microsoft employee conferences, the name of which evolved from MGS/MTB to MGB to TechReady. Surprisingly I have not seen many of them make their way outside of Microsoft.
My favourite one from memory was watching Bill tinker with a computer attached to a toaster via USB. After some seconds, the toast popped up, at which point he jumped out of his chair and did a little victory dance while walking down a corridor with a troupe of geek backing dancers!
I also remember during the antitrust trials a short clip of both Steve and Bill in the dock pointing at each other, while looking very innocent and mouthing “It was him! It was him!”…..
I do miss that!
Interesting article of the use of drugs to enhance your brain function.
“Whatever company comes out with the first memory pill is going to put Viagra to shame,” said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe.
Makes me want to make a joke about those that already think with their Viagra, but this is a family blog.
While I suspect that the effect of these drugs today on a healthy brain is pretty minimal, this area will most certainly develop, and will throw up a huge range of ethical dilemmas.
Two ways of development strike me instantly. The first being the way of the sporting world, where those who take performance enhancing drugs are considered cheats, and when found punished by their sporting bodies.
The second would be the path followed by cosmetic surgery, where at first, those that had any “enhancement” went out of their way to hide the fact, but which has now become so socially acceptable as to be almost mundane.
I suspect drugs that enhance the brain will follow the second path.
However, what holds just as much interest for me, is just want impact the drugs these turn into in 10 or 20 years will have on the advancement of science.
This is a great example of what makes predicting the future so incredibly difficult.
If, and this is not to say it is even possible, we were to discover a drug that improved our ability to do X with our brain by X percent, and its use penetrated broadly enough, then it would follow that it would result in accelerated scientific progress.
It has just reminded me how much more potential lies in the human body, and that the ever more rapid advancement of technology is not only achieved through new technologies, but by using some of the old ones better!
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