TG’s WEBlog (Known
as a BLOG or Blogging)
Wanna discuss the
WEBlog content? Email TGtips@topica.com
or link to TGtips Discussion Place
for an open discussion group.
January
Blogs: Actions Speak
Louder than Words, Wordy Bullshit, Branding, Links Today, TV Heaven, Enemies
Bring Gifts, Debate on Dave Weinberger’s New Book, Change Now, Rant, What I did
on my Holidays, Fame and Immortality (Me and Bill Gates),e-business failures,
Parallels with my Father, Micropayments-The Future of the Internet, My First
Day at School, Football Memories and a Chance in Life, Rivers Link People,
Links, Design and Creativity, The Other Faces, 7UP, What is Voice?-Vision and
Action, Writing in Progress, Latest Virus Alerts, When is a Weblog a Weblog,
Hello 2002, Happy New Year, 2002 New Year’s Resolutions.
February
Blogs: Spike Milligan Dies, Camp It Up!, Cluetrain Savaged
(and the Nevilles), Goods Luck Elliot!, Monkey Brains, Busy and Thanks,
MindMaps and Walter Winterbottom, Radio 8 Blog and Micropayments, Morning
Pages, Women!, Jackson Browne Lyrics – Lives in the Balance, Let
the Consumer and Employee Revolution Begin, Life and Death, Corporate Rant,
Wilful Georgia!, Celebrity Blogs, United Internet, Friends Reunited at Work,
Immunisation?, Good Business Leadership, No Logo, Definitely No Logo, Missing
in Action, Paolo Di Canio.
March Blogs: Words Fail Me,
Losing My Religion, Bush Fire?, Fucking Telstra, Redflagsweekly, The Best
Companies to Work For?, Good to Be Back, Write On – Cling Sheets, Georgia,
Redundancy, Am I a Loser?, Google Image Searches, Sporting DNA, Corporate DNA,
My World has Changed, Internet Laugh, No Logo, Political Compass, Fark, Sex Sells,
Tourette Syndrome Barbie, Trailer Park (Trash?), Gauss Rifle, Bruce
Sterling, Deep Links and Google Scientology, Jimmy
Hill I love you because…,
April Blogs : Doctors-My Arse,
My Website Stats, FriendsReunited and Demography of Networks, Other People,
Today, Missing Days, Nothing Today, Aussie Humour, Come on England, Ethics,
Quality of Life, United Reject, I’m Tired, Israel, Vaccines, Computer
Addiction, Self Adjusting Networks, Website Redesign, My Website is Back,
Apologies for Telstra, Andrew Sullivan, Zipf’s Law, Fucking Telstra yet again,
Still a Snowboard Addict, and Logos, Redflagsweekly Again and The Queen Mum’s
Funeral, Game Addiction, Gravity and Science, Maglev and Political Power, Fark
Links, Lost Keys and High Hopes, Scientific Research Stinks, Big Companies,
Dangers of DHMO.
May Blogs: Georgia not sleeping, Georgia
not well, Sydney, QANTAS, Dave Portnoy – Friendsreunited, PC Cleanup, Cooking
Food is Killing Us, Printers and Designers, Telstra Update, Stupid White Men,
Fixit and Hoaxes, Website Nightmare, Blogging Time, ICL and British Invention,
Wedding Photos, Stressful Day, Good to be
Back, Crawling Daughter, Blue Peter, Anti-Gravity,
Mothers Day, Sven’s England Team, Man Yoo Mourning, Nothing and Tom Peters!, Telstra
yet Again and Broadband, Crawling!, Perth, Barbara Castle and Sliding Doors,
Enzymes.
June Blogs: Brazil, Tim Henman’s Serve,
David O’Leary sacking, Wheels come off WorldCom, Brazil beat Turkey, A Deeply
Frustrating Day, Sick, England Keep Falling Over, Oh No, England 1 Brazil 2,
America and Anthrax, Korea!, More USA and Football, Brazil here we come!, 3-0
to The Inger-land, England v Denmark, Dell, C’mon Inger-land, And just to prove
what crap Americans write, Isolation of the USA, Limitations of the Internet,
England, More Canberra Rex, Defer to your experts on the frontline, IBM PC
Visionary, Canberra Rex Hotel, Canberra, More Dyslexia, Dyslexia.
July Blogs: Laptop Troubles, Sense of
Direction, Rio, Miracles of the Mind, Sick and Tired, Lack of Fame – Janis Ian,
Fame, I want to live forever! Rod Steiger, Brisbane, Born in the USA.
August Blogs: Small Pieces Loosely
Joined, Wil Wheaton inspires me to Think
Big, Medina Apartments – Don’t Go There, Thank You QANTAS (Eventually), Strike,
Gold Coast Dreamin, Adversity, Queensland Taxi Driver, Chilean Taxi Driver,
Beckham’s Wiener, Founding Friends Reunited and Mark Purdey is a genius, I’m
Back.
September Blogs: Good Weather and Fast
Company, Dad, 25 Years Ago, Aussie Rule Grand Final, Banks and Mobile Phones (yet again), Just Back with Big Ideas, Nowt as queer as
folk (on the Internet), Roll on Wi-Fi, A Little Ray of Sunshine, Birthdays,
Lazy Sunday Afternoon, Calm Day Dreaming, Frustrating Day, Stuck, Raging Anger
with Australian Telcos, A Day of Contemplation, Death and Email, Leeds v Man
United, Taxi Drivers – Nepalese,
Chinese, Tanzanian, One Year On, Damn Modem Link, Double Bay, Corporate Rant,
Greece, Kurds, Literal Answers to Rhetorical Questions, Networking Challenge,
Ecademy, Wil Wheaton and the Power of The Internet, If you pray hard enough!,
Size Is Not a Strategy, Fathers Day, Roy Keane.
October Blogs; Georgie, Long Bets,
Redflagsweekly, Getting Hot and
Micropayments, All time England Team,
Fantastic Links, Clocks go Forward, Car Design, Gravity of the
Situation, Your Health – The Most Important Thing You Will Read All Year, Anti
War Rant, Health Rant, and Right Wing Rant, Great Britains, Van Nistelrooy, Wil
Wheaton’s Aunt Val, Technology Predictions,
CNN Disgust, Nice Ideas, Breast Cancer, Markets and George Soros, Boeings, Webcams and Bali, Webcam, Bali,
Child Vaccines and Risk, More MLM and a few ideas, Multi Level Marketing is not
pyramid selling, Who is Fredo?, Happy Mondays, How do you say goodbye in an
email?, Thank You Rockhampton and Cairns, Rockhampton Revisited, Ind Tech-Bradford
University, Education what is it good for?, Cairns to Rockhampton, Education
fails us,
November Blogs: One more month, The Best
Diet, Human Nature, Patronising Doctors!, Virtual Reality Idea, Football,
Growth of Chat, Is your
computer safe?, More Bullshit
Generators, Another great
day networking, and Values, A
week or two or coincidences, Is
it an Acorn or a Rabbit Turd?, Loyalty, Tom Peters’ Slides, Nigerian Scams, Animal
Farm and Weasels, Inkblot
Test, Optical Illusions, Airline Water, Small Power Sources, Salt, French
Heart Disease, Cholesterol Myths, Happy
First Anniversary!, Russian
Virus 666!, Fish, and Metabolic Typing Diet, Why do we school our kids?, Baby Intelligence, Citeh
3 Man Yoo 1, I’m Frightened, Citeh and Leeds, Vaccine Rant and Football Managers,
Favourite Books, Melbourne Cup, Sticking the Boot
in on the Monarchy, Paul Burrell
and The Monarchy, What are the Odds
of Dying?, Top 100 Brands 2002, Aussie Time.
Saturday 30th November 2002
One more month to
go before I’ve been writing my 3 pieces plus this Weblog for a year.
WoW!
The website has risen
to 219,281 in the Alexa rankings, suggesting by their criteria I’m the 219,281st
most popular website on the Internet.
I’d say that’s a
gross overestimate.
I’m beginning to
realise how Alexa works. It ranks by the
number of people with the Alexa toolbar that visit other websites.
So if you’re in
with a group of people that might use the Alexa toolbar, be nice to them and
they’ll come and visit your website and send it zooming up the rankings.
Having porn, or
attracting Koreans, seems to be the best two strategies for a high Alexa
ranking.
I must say the
number of hits per day has gradually risen.
The site hits
can’t all be me using my browser a lot with it being set to my home page!
I’ve largely
loved the writing this year and I’m thinking about what to write next year.
My current
thinking is to grow Rimmer Shit into my teenage years and call it something
else.
Have a separate
section for Sports and another one for Health.
Carry on a bit
more with The Lazy Salesman, and write occasionally on Motivation and The
Less=More thing.
That still leaves
room for one or two more daily bits.
What could I
sustain for a year?
I’m having a
think about that one.
The easiest would
be to link something to Georgia growing up in her 1s and 2s.
I’ve got a month to
come up with something, if I go the same route next year.
Friday 29th November 2002
You want to know
which is the best diet and best way to lead a healthy life?
You really want
to know?
Ok, I’ll tell
you.
Read this; Achieve
Independent Health With My Nutrition Plan
You may not like
it, but he’s spot on.
Combines the best
of all current thinking, and he’s probably right.
Thursday 28th November 2002
I can’t decide if
all people are evil or inherently good.
I’ll go with the
Scott Adams pronouncement that “All people are idiots!”
Are they trying
to help or rip me off?
If I think people
are trying to rip me off then that’s a reflection on me ripping other people
off.
Because I tend to
be trusting, it’s a reflection that I can be trusted.
But I sometimes
wonder what people’s motives are.
I do things with
and for goodwill and have it flung back at me.
Sometimes I do
things, good things, because I do, and other people don’t understand that, they
think there’s a catch or I want something.
I’m being a bit
obtuse here, but the more I put myself out there the more things, good things
happen.
But also the more
bad things happen and I get screwed around.
My attitude and
philosophy is just get on with it Tony, don’t let the fear of failure, screwing
up or being ripped off hold me back.
Better that my
ideas and materials are out there than carefully guarded and not seeing the
light of day.
I must stress that
I’m not talking about anyone I’ve met today.
I have had some great meetings today.
And I know I’m on
track.
9 screw ups and 1
Big success!
That’s my
philosophy.
Better than no
screw ups and 1 small success!
Or maybe not!!
People are very
weird!
What is it that
they do with their 24 hours, every day?
How come some
achieve so much and others achieve nothing.
I use achieve in
the broader sense, I don’t just mean wealth, fame, and fortune.
I guess we’re
born and we choose how to spend that time.
Ok, some don’t
have a choice, but many of us have the privilege of freedom.
I say that,
because I just read this, which is shocking.
Wednesday 27th November 2002
My doctor is a
patronising shit!
Old school, very
reassuring as long as you listen and agree with him.
A tablet for
every ill.
No concern for
what might be causing any ailment, just keep taking the tablets.
Any suggestion of
more investigation with a specialist is scoffed at.
Let’s do a few
tests for cholesterol and kidney function and if the results are high give you
some more tablets.
What else can GPs
do anyway?
They’re not
trained to be holistic and look at what’s causing anything.
Just treat the
symptoms and dish out the pills and they’re safe
As long as the
pills have passed the short term tests everything’s ok.
It’s not worth pointing
out to someone like that what the latest research is saying about any of the
subject he holds so dear.
It’s an
interesting time we live in.
I can know more
about a specific subject in the 1 hour before I see him than he knows.
I can find the
latest research and the counter argument to the research.
The recommended
medication, and the counter arguments to the recommended medication.
The one thing a
doctor has in their favour is that they see a lot of patients so build up
wisdom.
Sometimes though
this wisdom is a danger.
Doctors are the third
highest killers (cause of death) in the developed world and we’re not
talking Shipman here!
Tuesday 26th November 2002
I’ve been sitting
on an idea for a long time.
Virtual Reality.
You know how
virtual reality has been developed for a long time to simulate real situations,
and for gaming and other creations.
My idea
suggestion is that it’s put to a more simple use.
Computer
interfaces don’t seem to work the way our brains work, certainly not my brain!
In other words,
it’s taken me a long time to adjust to seeing a single screen of information; A
Word document or an Excel Spreadsheet.
Why not put on the
virtual reality goggles and glove(s) and be able to see a whole wall of
spreadsheet or pages of a document up on a wall.
Do you understand
what I’m saying? Instead of looking at a
screen at a time you could see a whole wall of pages, or one blood big spreadsheet.
You could use the
glove to move text or cells around or point at functions to manipulate text or
numbers.
This doesn’t have
to be complex colour graphics it could be simple 2 tone colours.
Have I invented
something here?
Is it just me
that’s thought of this?
Isn’t it a good
idea?
To make the way
computers work nearer to how humans work.
We don’t usually
look at a page at a time, we scan and choose.
Maybe it’s just
me.
Monday 25th November 2002
I watched the Man
Yoo v Newcastle game on Saturday.
The same as the
Citeh game, 3 players played well.
Solskjaer,
Scholes, Silvestre.
Van Nistelrooy
has stopped falling over.
Richardson looked
good for one mazy run and looks uncannily like Giggs in style.
It’s not quite
right with Man Yoo even thought they scored 5 (and conceded 3!)
The link below
says it all even before the game.
Football news, fun, results and features from Football365.com
And if you think
it’s bad being a Man Yoo fan you want to try coming to Australia and following
Carlton football club. Aussie Rules.
Carlton are the
oldest club in the country with the most glorious history. A friend convinced me to start following them
if I ever moved to Australia.
There are 16
clubs. All the clubs have a salary
cap. Clubs finishing lowest each year
have the highest choice of draft picks the following years so everything should
balance out over time, and every dog have its day.
Carlton finished
fifth last year. Yippee. The made it into the play-offs.
This year they
finished bottom. They were dire.
Never mind at
least we’ll the first choice draft picks for next year and can start to build a
new team for the future.
But No!
Carlton have been
found to have breached the salary cap not once but now several times.
The chairman John
Elliot who has been in charge of Carlton for more than 20 years seems to have
been paying players under the counter.
And the directors
were aware of this.
The chairman and
board were recently deposed and the new chairman and board came clean.
The commission
found Carlton guilty and as punishment withdrew the first two draft choices for
this year and next and imposed a $900k fine.
This is on a club
that is already $9m in debt, owes the coach it sacked $500k, and has brought in
a new coach on a high salary.
This of course
was done before the new board took charge.
How can a
business be so badly managed.
How can a board
so lack integrity?
But here’s the rub. Not only is John Elliot the ex-chairman
guilty but what about the greedy players accepting the payments?
Some of them
were/are still board members. They also have a lot to answer for.
And in spite of
all this greed they still finish bottom!!
Damn it, I’ve
picked the team that’s going to have the worst 5-10 years of any Aussie
Football Team. At least if you’re bad
you usually get first pick next year!
Sunday 24th November 2002
It’s amazing that
on some days I have no links to write about and today, I have more links than I
know what to do with.
I noticed this
article. It’s all coming true with chat.
I realised the potential when I first started using chat 18 months ago
when I first arrived in Australia and used it to communicate with the UK. At the same time I read Cluetrain and
realised the enormous potential chat has in business and social situations.
Somehow, people,
including me, sometimes prefer chat to the phone. I guess it’s more considered but less immediate
than the phone.
Somewhere between
the phone and email.
And next will be
video conferencing which will be step up from the phone. This is a step down but very appropriate in
some situations, especially groups.
Ever tried a
conference call! Chat is much easier for
groups.
Online dating's new
love: IM - Tech News - CNET.com
On
the other hand this quote has a good point to make about how people are using
the technology to screen and not communicate.
I
must say it’s more difficult now to communicate with people than it’s ever been
|
Steve MacLaughlin got to spend
time with his mind on a solo drive from NC to IN, and came
up with a bunch of interesting thoughts, including this one: |
|
|
I have
become convinced that all of the technology that allows people to be
accessible anywhere, day or night, actually allows us to avoid being found in
the first place. With cellphones, pages, PDAs, voicemail, email, and
everything in-between you would think that you could track down people in a
moments notice if you really need to. But in reality people either turn the
things off, screen their calls, or let everything and everyone sit in
voicemail limbo. Technology has allowed people to become even more passive
aggressive than they already were to begin with. In the past you might
actually have to confront someone or be confronted about a problem or issue,
but now you can just pick and choose who gets to see the wizard. |
And
whilst you’re using all this technology, here’s a good website to visit to test
your firewall
Shields UP! -- Internet Connection
Security Analysis
Saturday 23rd November 2002
It’s only when
you try out these bullshit generators that you realise how many people in
business talk bullshit!
dack.com > web > web economy
bullshit generator
I liked this
slide from Doc Searls. It’s a great point about what the Internet is
all about. It’s not a profit making
entity in itself. It’s a means of
enabling value.
Linux
Journal - The Premier Magazine of the Linux Community
This
is a good idea. A graphically presented
search engine. Not sure how good the
search engine is but it’s a good pointer to the how future interfaces may look.
And
finally talking of the bullshit medical profession, back to health. The Atkins diet is so counter-intuitive. Lots of protein and fat, very little
carbohydrate. I just think it goes a
little extreme on cutting out the fresh fruit and veg, but it seems to work. Good for weight loss, but I’m not sure if
it’s good for sustained weight loss. I
must say I haven’t read the book so I’d better do that before I comment any
more. The current research seems to show
it works which shows what a load of bullshit the scientists, dieticians, food
industry and government have been feeding us with for the last 35 years.
Yahoo!
News - Study: Atkins Good for Cholesterol
Friday 22nd November 2002
Another great day
networking.
Some great people
I’ve met today.
Good potential
ideas and future business as well.
I’ve sorted out
what my values are;
Health
Integrity
Family
Quality of Life
Curiosity
Advancement
Creativity
Success
Contribution
Open-Mindedness
Spirituality
Play
Loyalty
Security
Wealth
Intimacy
Friendship
That should do!
Thursday 21st November 2002
I’ve had one of
those weeks of massive coincidences.
So many people
I’ve met, know so many people I’ve met.
Things are
conspiring to tell me something.
I was at a
networking conference this morning, and by chance out of 200+ people, I talked
to someone who knows the very person I’ve been most trying to contact.
Next. The family
were very badly treated by the Apartments in Brisbane where we stayed a few
months ago.
By complet
coincidence my mother in law has just started doing some work for the owner of
the Melbourne apartments of the same chain/franchise!
I’ve been meaning
to contact a guy who works in a similar area to me. We spoke briefly 6 months ago. I bumped into his business colleague at a
party a few weeks ago.
Didn’t know him
but a complete coindidence. This
prompted me to meet up with the original guy from 6 months ago. It looks promising. I met a guy today who knows the guy I’m
meeting tomorrow. I met a woman
yesterday who knows the guy I’m meeting.
So 3 people know the
guy I’m meeting tomorrow and I met them all separately and it’s all
coincidences.
I’m invited to
this conference this morning and they’re promoting a book. I bought the book at random 3 months
ago.
The speaker today
is a contributor and the distributor for the book here in Australia. I chose the book at random before I’d heard
about this organisation. The organiser is from Manchester.
There have been
plenty of other coincidences recently.
My take on it, is
that if you put yourself out there and meet new people, it creates more and
more butterfly wings flapping, and more chances of chaos and coincidence, and
the more I practise the luckier I get.
Wednesday 20th November 2002
Just reading this month’s Fast Company magazine.
And
came across this article on Innovation
Now!
And
to quote from the bit at the bottom “Is It an Acorn or a Rabbit Turd?”
“If you want to build an organization that's capable of systemic, radical
innovation, you have to start by realizing that almost every company today is
built for optimization. Short-term efficiency overrules almost every other
economic decision. But by definition, innovation is wasteful in the short term:
It takes a lot of acorns to grow an oak tree. Whether you're trying to innovate
in the music business, the pharmaceutical business, or the fashion business,
you're going to be confronted with an inescapable math problem: You need 1,000
crazy ideas to find 100 plans that are worth funding experimentally so that you
can then identify 10 projects that are worth pursuing seriously in hopes of
coming up with one or two strategies that have true transformative power.
Every CEO would love to be
able to walk through the forest and know which acorn will germinate. But it
can't be done. There's simply no way to know in advance -- not when there are
so many variables and there is so little actual control. We can't know where
the rains are going to fall, which acorn will get washed into better soil, and
which one will end up in a rocky streambed. But that doesn't make the CEO
powerless and subject to whim. When you walk through the forest, you can tell
the difference between an acorn and a rabbit turd. And when it comes to
innovation, the rule is simple: Don't waste time on rabbit turds. You don't
have to tolerate stupidity. As you begin to sift through your organization's
ideas, you can generally tell the difference between the ones that are simply
crazy and the ones that at least have the potential to change customer expectations, the basis of
competition, or industry economics in ways that are profitable.
Too many CEOs are concerned
that provoking 1,000 or 2,000 unconventional ideas will incite their people to
waste time going off in thousands of crazy directions. That's not the problem.
People have been beaten down, boxed in, and brainwashed for so long that the
challenge is not to rein in their far-fetched and absurd fantasies. The
challenge is to get them to expand
their thinking.”
What
stuns me is that’s exactly what I’ve been looking at over the last few days.
Setting
up 10 projects knowing that most of them will fail and getting one to succeed
big time.
Holy
Rabbit Turds!
Tuesday 19th November 2002
BBC SPORT | Football | Teams | Man City | Anelka 'will be
banned'
BBC
SPORT | Football | Giggs spirits lifted by Wales
Anelka doesn’t
want to play for France because they’ve chosen him after a few injuries to other
players and he’s not the player of choice.
Giggs right now
would rather play for Wales than Man United.
Firstly, can FIFA
impose a ban on Anelka from playing for Manchester City? Is that legal? Isn’t that restraint of trade?
How can a public company
have an employee stopped from working?
Loyalty and
Anelka aren’t 2 words that sit easily together, but he has a point. France pick him as third or fourth choice
it’s up to him to decide if he wants to play.
Surely they can’t
make him play. How do they know he’ll
play properly? If they were his
employees they’d have stronger case, but they’re not.
He can announce
his retirement and he’s ok. Ok so he
announces tomorrow he’s retired and then he can change his mind next week!
Giggs. Good luck to him. It’s nice to see a player getting a buzz from
playing for his country. I can’t
remember that happening for a long time in football.
A bit of passion.
Monday 18th November 2002
There’s a great
download of Tom Peters’ PowerPoint slides from his website.
900 slides with
enough info and quotes to keep you going for 6 months.
Don’t you love
someone who’s prepared to put that much out into the world.
http://www.tompeters.com/slides/uploaded/MasterHNBW101002.ppt
Two quotes which
caught my eye.
“Hierarchy is an organization with its face toward
the CEO and its ass toward the customer.”
Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale, Funky
Business]
Welcome to D.I.Y. Nation: “Changes in business processes will emphasize self
service. Your costs as a business go down and perceived service goes up because customers are conducting it
themselves.”
Ray Lane, Oracle Bill of (SELECTIVE) Rights
And for those who’ve been
receiving Nigerian (and other) scam emails, there’s whole site full of them!
Scam o Rama, or The Lads from
Lagos
Sunday 17th November 2002
Just watched most
of the Animal Farm
film made for TV in 1999.
It’s a great
reminder of a great book. Fun and dark
to watch.
It’s so long
since I read the book, I can’t remember how much the film detracts, but didn’t
the book end with the pigs looking like man, and man looking like the pigs?
If so, then the
Americans have added one of those shit happy endings tacked on the end so that
it works for the American market.
Talking of which have a look at this
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Shadow over Craig David's
US tour
The Animal Farm
book and film describe rules being changed and that’s what the film is doing relative
to the book so that you doubt your own memory!
It’s easy to
dismiss the film as being a parable of Communist Soviet Union, but of course it
could never happen to us.
I tell you what,
go watch the film and then read this, it’s terrifying. Save
Your Vaccination Rights: Tell Your Senators to Vote NO to Homeland Security
Bill! 11/16/02 and
Just how stupid
are the Americans? We’ll find out if the
bill goes through unamended.
Pharmaceuticals,
Food Advice, Our Perceived “Enemies”, What CNN chooses to report to keep Iraq
happy, The Bush motives for war on Iraq, The blockage of Iraq on the southern
borders and yet we turn a blind eye to exports on the northern borders through
Turkey. Hidden scientific research, Research which comes up with
the answers that are favourable. All
examples of Orwellian manipulation, not just in Communist or Fascist regimes.
Hell, I’m
sounding like some kind of anti-government conspiracy theorist!!
Mind you if The
Queen thinks “There are
powers at work in this country about which we have no knowledge.” Then you never know!
Mind you, we’ll never know if that’s what The Queen actually said.
I’m getting confused.
Talking of animals and Weasels,
Dilbert.com - Shop - Book Log-in
“Attractive people have special weasel
privileges because the rest of us like to look at them.
No one wants to take a
chance of angering good-looking people because if they go someplace else, then
we'll have to sit around looking at each other.
And that's not
entertaining.”
Saturday 16th November 2002
Check this fun
test out from Emode, Emode.com: Emode's Original Inkblot Test
And this is a
pretty weird website with lots off stuff like this, Anomalies
Unlimited Optical Illusions
I don’t believe
it! How bad can things be? Check this one out! How safe is
airline water?
Friday 15th November 2002
This one’s
interesting because the current limitation on many devices is the power source,
both in terms of size and battery life.
Smaller
power sources on the horizon - Tech News - CNET.com
And now for
something completely different.
I am completely
gobsmacked. Actually I’m not. It doesn’t
surprise me that we’ve been living this myth of high salt consumption causing
high blood pressure, and that it’s not really been proven in terms of long term
effects. I think the body adjusts quite
well to a high intake of salt. Having said
that, my intake of salt has been high recently and I’m just bringing it back
down. But isn’t it amazing that every
medical thing we take as gospel in each generation is not necessarily true. What’s disturbing is there’s nothing to back
up the claims of high salt intake yet everyone talks like it’s the truth.
Even more mind
boggling is why the French have much lower rates of heart disease than
comparative nations like the Brits.
Forget the garlic
and red wine. The answer is quite
surprising What protects the French from Heart Disease?
This then took me
on to this article which is connected,
From The International
Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
The Cholesterol
Myths - some astonishing facts
It’s good to see
that some people are challenging standard medical practises and thinking for
themselves.
The irony is that
it goes against one of the guys who linked cholesterol with heart disease in
the first place and is also an independent thinker, and from what I’ve read, a
hero of mine. John Gofman
Thursday 14th November 2002
I’ve been writing
my Weblog for a year now.
Amazing how it
all adds up over time.
Complete
coincidence that I had a look just now and found it was a year ago.
Almost missed the
anniversary.
It’s been
interesting to do, and I’m still enjoying it, gathering my thoughts, links, and
rants together daily.
I never seem to
struggle too much with my Weblog; it’s the other
3 that I’m sometimes blank on.
I’d forgotten
that I started this one in November last year, because the other 3 pieces
started last January.
I’m still finding
my voice and style and I guess the highlight has been watching my website go up
the Alexa ratings, it’s now 302,977.
Also someone
reviewed the site on Alexa, saying,
“Great, honest site
Tony tells it as he
sees it. Not like so many blogs that just waffle on about other people, this
one tells us all about his ideas and feelings. With real passion.”
That really gladdens my heart because that’s exactly what
I’m aiming for.
Year 2. I’m
reasonably happy with the design. I’d
like to do away with the frames and have single scrolling pages.
Also there’s no permalinks for people to link to the dates,
just the month.
I wonder if I shouldn’t be writing on Blogger or something,
but I like the flexibility.
I’ve been happy to stay low profile, write and they will
come; but maybe it’s time to be more public, promotional, and get up to those
100 hits per day.
My inspiration over time has been,
And finally I don’t know if when you write your Weblog you
have someone in mind that’s reading it, well the person I seem to have in mind
most often is John
Moore.
Wednesday 13th November 2002
Just read this
article;
The
Memory Hole > "The Mind Has No Firewall": Army article on
psychotronic weapons
Is this for
real? I’m not sure. I guess some of it is, but when I came to
“Russian Virus 666” I had my doubts.
A Google search
doesn’t throw up that much. One or two
articles debunk it, some debunk the whole article a bit, and others have just
copied the article assuming it’s the truth.
What is Russian
Virus 666?
“According to Solntsev, one
computer virus capable of affecting a person's psyche is Russian Virus 666. It
manifests itself in every 25th frame of a visual display, where it produces a
combination of colors that allegedly put computer operators into a trance. The
subconscious perception of the new pattern eventually results in arrhythmia of
the heart. Other Russian computer specialists, not just Solntsev, talk openly
about this "25th frame effect" and its ability to subtly manage a
computer user's perceptions. The purpose of this technique is to inject a
thought into the viewer's subconscious. It may remind some of the subliminal
advertising controversy in the United States in the late 1950s”
Me
thinks that this is a hoax if not the whole article which may have some half
truths in it.
Though
I did read recently about the USA and UK developing microwave weapons to fry
opponents! Sinister. Is this possible?
How
do you direct any of these Electro Magnetic Frequency weapons without
destroying your own weapons (and yourselves)?
Maybe
it has a timer switch on the front, just like a microwave oven!!
And
doesn’t film use 24 frames per second so how do you fit the 25th
frame in? Maybe it’s 1 frame per second
inserted.
It
all sounds highly unlikely, but there are optical illusions you can create
using a computer.
Ever
watched that swirling object for a minute and then looked at your hand creeping
around. If you’ve tried that you’ll know
what I mean.
Yippee,
just found it with my first Google search!
Rotating Spiral Afterimage Illusion No. 1
Counter-Rotating
Spirals Illusion
Blimey you could spend hours on the internet just playing with
this one subject.
Try this one! FREE fun pages in your inbox from FunPages.com!
More immediately worrying is the;
So those of us
who eat more fish than meat in their diets have been poisoning themselves with
Mercury?
Is this
true? Many believe it to be the case.
And whilst I’m on
a health kick here, check this book out.
Amazon.com: Books: The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your
Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry
I haven’t read it
yet, but it seems to make very good sense.
Tuesday 12th November 2002
Why do we lock
them away for 7 hours a day, 13 years of the best part of their lives, and cram
them full of shit?
As long as they
can read and write and do a bit of maths, what does the rest matter?
Who decided on
History, Geography, Science as subjects anyway?
It seems it’s to
compete with other kids who are also having their heads crammed with crap.
This guy has the
answers
Bianca,
You Animal, Shut Up! - John Taylor Gatto
If you look
around the site a bit more, there’s a whole book there about the
history of education.
What did we learn
at school that we apply now?
What didn’t we
learn at school that we wish we had?
What skills do we
have now that we learnt at school?
Can’t we just let
kids play?
Monday 11th November 2002
I am amazed at
what a 1 year old learns and picks up.
Georgia is
watching her Hi-5 video and starting to imitate some of the movements of the
group.
She’s intuitively
working out how a remote control works, and how my HP printer works.
I’ve noticed what
when she looks around, I can predict what she’s going for next.
In other words,
good design and advertising seem to be aimed at a 1 year old!
Seriously, if
something is well designed and simple, it even catches a 1 year old’s eye.
Georgia’s now
started handing me the remote controls when she wants her video on!
This is from a 1
year old.
Sunday 10th November 2002
I’m really pissed
off with this one, as Fergie rightly points out; the fans are seething with the
players.
I stayed up to
watch it here in Australia and United were shit.
Who the hell do
these players think they are?
Why are they so
bad?
There seems to be
a thing at United that when you’re not fully match fit and struggling for pace
you dive around for penalties.
Van Nistelrooy
was a disgrace and I didn’t think he was that type of player.
Citeh were good,
especially Goater and Anelka, and the rest of Citeh showed the weaknesses in
United that the article on Friday suggested might happen.
What the game
showed is:
Schmeichel even
now is better than Barthez.
Gary Neville just
doesn’t have it anymore. He’s neither a
great defender nor attacking full-back.
Ferdinand is not
worth the money.
Blanc though good
is slow.
Phil Neville is a
utility squad player and should not be playing Premiership football in
midfield.
Giggs is too one
footed. He doesn’t cross the ball well
with his good foot so what’s he there for?
Veron had his
chance yesterday to prove himself and I’ve seen enough. Who will buy him though? He hit more bad passes than Beckham.
Van Nistelrooy
has lost his pace and ball control, will he recover it?
And as for
Forlan; he doesn’t even look like a good park player.
That leaves 3
players who played well. Scholes, who
plays even better when Butt is in the team, Solskjaer who is having to do
everything, and Silvestre who’s become consistent with the occasional foray
upfield. Holy shit, when did it go
wrong? I’ll tell you.
Getting rid of
Stam, McClaren leaving, and Fergie pissing around with his retirement and
selling players but not rebuilding the squad.
How the hell did
we end up with 3 attackers, two of which can’t play good football right now which
leaves poor Ole Gunnar on his own.
Keane Beckham and
Butt out. I don’t think it would have
made a difference. Keane will sit too
deep when he comes back, Beckham will continue to hit bad passes and score a
spectacular free-kick one in every five games, and Butt with his limitations
will play very well and get the other players playing better, but it wouldn’t
have helped yesterday.
Berkovic. We’re
not asking for miracles here. We need
players of the calibre of Berkovic and Di Canio, who won’t cost a fortune and
are worth their salary on a 2 or 3 year contract. If you want to blood kiddies then do that
instead but what’s happening right now is shit.
I don’t know how much Fergie’s hands are tied with the finances but I
can’t see how one transfer window in January is going to solve things.
And where do
United look strongest? In defence, and
it’s not Ferdinand that has made the difference. They’ve always had more than enough good
defenders for nearly 10 years, so why waste the money on Ferdinand. If he can’t single handedly stop Anelka and
Goater and send scything passes into midfield then why bother spending the
money in that position, just because the press are too stupid to know any
differently. Conceding goals does not
necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the central defence. It could mean
that the full-backs aren’t doing their job or the midfield are messing up.
I’m really pissed
off with this one. It was due to happen,
but it’s the manner in which it happened.
United were never in the game.
Mind you, it
could be worse. You could be Leeds and
Terry Venables!
Saturday 9th November 2002
I just read a
couple of articles which really frighten me.
BBC
NEWS | Politics | Blunkett admits terror warning error
So really they’re
expecting a Dirty Bomb.
And what ability
do they have to do anything about it?
Fuck all. How much are they really applying themselves
to do anything about it? Fuck all.
And where is it
safe? America, UK, Australia, France?
And then I read
this.
The
New Republic Online: Perverse Which means they’re doing fuck all about Dirty
Bombs, or at least getting rid of gays is a higher priority.
I have no faith
in the Western Intelligence services or politicians for that matter.
As I’ve said
before, if you have a brain the size of the Universe the last place you’d
probably end up is in ‘Intelligence’ or Politics.
Whilst I love
reading Andrew Sullivan and agree with a lot of what he says, I think this Stephen
Bell cartoon is pretty near the mark, even though something needs to be
done about Saddam and Al Qaeda. I doubt
Bush’s reasons. Why now? Why not North Korea or China. Because he can. Secondly if Saddam is toppled what will
replace him? I’ll bet the Americans
don’t have a plan.
At the end of the
day though, it’s not the fault of the Americans or Brits that there are people
out there who want to end the world and have no respect for life.
Mind you who
started much of what has gone on for the last 50 years, who has armed the
world, who dropped the bomb, who invented and grew the bomb?
There’s no simple
black or white answer. We have had
relative peace in the Western world for 50 years, so this new threat takes some
getting used to.
Never before have
so many of us been distanced and protected from early death, and yet now we are
facing a threat which brings us back to our ancestors’ fears.
And a few weeks
ago I saw a programme about most of Iraq’s oil being exported by truck through
Turkey. Openly.
So what the hell
is going on?
How come we play
at blocking Iraq, especially in the south, but openly know that they export
most of their oil through a NATO member?
Friday 8th November 2002
Five reasons why Citeh will beat Man Yoo. It’s a very good Citeh perspective on what’s
wrong with United right now.
Terry Venables is Killing Leeds United. Even better article
which confirms my view of Venables.
Thursday 7th November 2002
And another rant
about Vaccine dangers, or at least the untested dangers.
He puts it so
much better than me. Vaccine Recklessness
And all we’re
complaining about is that science is failing to test these vaccines, and has
become dangerously corrupted by pharmaceutical money and brainwashing.
And a few
predictions are already coming true.
Leeds’ folly in sacking O’Leary and replacing him with Terry
Venables, who has yet to prove himself in English football.
And prove himself
he will have to. My guess is his excuses
will be much better than his coaching or management ability.
The Leeds team
was a very tight good team who had a lot of success ahead of time with O’Leary
and Leeds and their fans are ungrateful bastards, just like Sunderland, and if
they think Eddie Gray is the man then good luck to them.
You sack a
manager when you know there is better, or you can find better.
That’s why I
wouldn’t get rid of Fergie, because much as he has mismanaged United for the
last 2 years, who are you going to replace him with?
Some teams are
great at appointing managers and totally get it (Southampton, Norwich, Ipswich,
Leicester), others are appalling (Spurs, Chelsea, Man City (more when they sack
them than when they appoint them), Aston Villa.
Many teams mix up
good players with good managers.
Good players
don’t necessarily make good managers or coaches.
And good coaches
don’t always make good managers, Brian Kidd.
Wednesday 6th November 2002
I put a list
together of my favourite non-fiction books.
It’s not
exhaustive and contains mainly books I’ve read recently.
Have a look and
see what you think.
Tuesday 5th November 2002
I’ve never been
one to follow the horses.
Melbourne Cup
here today, the biggest horse race in Australia, and bigger here than The Derby
or Grand National.
It’s a national
holiday here in Victoria.
Now I wouldn’t
normally watch but there’s so much coverage and it’s a major sporting event.
More importantly,
Damien Oliver was ridding one of the favourites, Media Puzzle, but the twist is that Damien Oliver’s brother was killed less than a week ago, in
a horse race. Damien Oliver chose to
ride. And guess what, the fairy tale
ending, he won! Very very moving. One of the great and memorable sporting
events that people will remember in years to come.
The UK has
thought about what happened last week with the Paul Burrell trail and has now
really stuck the boot in, especially this one . It raises
a lot of questions which people are starting to answer about The Monarch, The
Constitution and The Law. I think
they’re going a bit hard on The Queen in terms of her realising and remembering
the conversation with Paul Burrell.
Isn’t it more the fault of his defence team for failing to spot this
one? I’d say more cock-up than
conspiracy, but what really angers me, is the behaviour of the police, if it’s
true about their conversation with Prince Charles and William alleging that
Paul Burrell had sold some of Diana’s items and dressed up in her clothes.
As I’ve said
before, if you have a brain the size of the universe you’re not likely to join
the police and hence the brightest sparks don’t exist in the police. It doesn’t seem to have been something the
police considered that Paul Burrell had made some money from publishing a book
(not on Diana) and that the dressing up seems to be something Diana encouraged
as a joke which several of her staff took part in and have photos of themselves
dressed up.
What are the
police doing lying to Prince Charles and Prince William?
What is Charles
doing cancelling a meeting with Paul Burrell based on hearsay.
The funniest claim is that The Queen had a 3 hours meeting with
Paul Burrell, and someone has questioned the ability of The Queen to sustain
and emotional meeting with anyone for longer than 10 minutes.
“Leaving aside the fact that the royal family
has a sterling record of paying its faithful old servants pitifully and
disposing of them clinically, this explanation sounds out of character. The
Queen is not Samaritans material. With the exception of childbirth, she may
never have expended three hours on any inter-personal activity in her life. Her
conversations, except on matters equine, are supposedly terse, and her
communications with her oldest son, as emphasised in the Burrell case,
vestigial.”
Mind you what do
I know, I’m basing all this on hearsay!
It does reads
just like “To Play the
King”
Monday 4th November 2002
It’s only on
Sunday that I realised the implications of the case continuing.
The Queen and
Charles could have been called as witnesses.
I’ve not read an
article yet which fully explains the constitutional situation.
Can The Queen be
put on the witness stand?
If it is Burrell
v The Crown, does that mean The Queen?
Can The Queen
appear against herself?
Did the
prosecution drop the case as soon as they realised The Queen could be called to
the stand?
Is The Queen
above the law? I’m guessing not.
Did Charles raise
the whole thing because of fear that he may be called?
Did this happen
at the last minute before Paul Burrell took to the stand?
Will Paul Burrell
get all of the items back?
I’m sure there’s
an article somewhere which explains it all.
I’m confused about
the constitutional possibilities, let alone the motives of everyone.
Who brought the
prosecution in the first place?
Sunday 3rd November 2002
So here it is,
the odds of dying, from what.
National Safety
Council What are the Odds of Dying? Statistics
I’ve wondered
about this for a long time.
What are the most
dangerous things we do?
The statistics are
only as good as the information supplied, so I guess long term cause and effect
aren’t accounted for.
So taking a drug
for a long time which is later proven to cause death, won’t really reflect on
this.
Eating too much
or the wrong things won’t show up.
Long term effect
from radiation, aren’t going to show up either because you die from something
else which is recorded.
And this moves me
on to my own mortality which I’ve been thinking about for a while.
One of the
downsides of Georgia being born a year ago is it’s brought me more in touch
with my own mortality.
I want to be
around to see Georgia grow up into her 30s and 40s.
Maybe it’s
because I’m in my 40s and things are beginning to poke out where they
shouldn’t, that every twitch in my body is a sign of death!
I fear death in
that I love life, especially now I have Georgia.
It’s bizarre and
depressing, that the day we die is written in a book somewhere, foretold.
Whether, it’s
today tomorrow, next year, 10 years, 100 years, we all die, every single one of
us.
The question is
when.
Maybe I’m hitting
midlife crisis.
I staved it off
and became young again when Georgia was born, it’s keeping me young, even
getting up at 5-45 am most mornings when she wakes up.
If you could know
the day you were going to die, would you want to know?
I don’t. I just want to get on with it and enjoy every
precious moment.
I’m still struck
by the story taken from Steven Covey’s First Things First which is bouncing
around my head,
I can’t stop
thinking about this story taken from Stephen Covey’s First Things First.
“Years ago, I was visiting with a young woman
in the hospital who was only twenty-three years old and had two small children
at home.
She had just been told she had incurable
cancer.
As I held her hand and tried to think of
something to say that might comfort her, she cried,
“I would give anything to go home and
change a messy diaper!”
As I thought about her words and my
experience with my own small children, I wondered how many times both of us had
changed diapers out of a sense of duty, hurriedly, even frustrated by the
seeming inconvenience in our busy lives, rather then cherishing precious
moments of life and love we had no way of knowing would ever come again.”
It brings tears to
my eyes just thinking of the sadness of the young woman dying, and tears of
gratitude to appreciate every moment of my life.
Saturday 2nd November 2002
Interesting to
note which are the top 100 brands by value.
Coca Cola number
one.
Top British
brand……Reuters. Shows the decline of the
nation and lack of understanding about branding.
On the other hand
Americans like simple messages!
http://www.brandchannel.com/interbrand/test/html/events/WMVB2002.pdf
Friday 1st November 2002
For about the
third or fourth time I’ve had an Aussie confused by the 24 hour clock!
Aussies seem to have
no concept of using the 24 hour clock 18-30 or 18:30
I’ve been
corrected for putting 18-30 instead of 18:30, I’ve been told that 20-30 might
mean 20 to 30 people.
I’ve had someone
check that 18-30 means 6-30 pm.
I’m stunned.
Come on Australia
get with it, get into the 21st Century.
I’m not sure I
believe all this, because Qantas, you know, the Australian national airline,
issue their e-tickets information by email with 24 hour clock times.
Maybe most of you
Aussies don’t use the Internet to book flight tickets!
And another
thing. If you’re doing business with the
rest of the world, you’d thing a 24 hour clock is essential.
It just goes to
show that Australia is more insular than most people realise.
Come on Aussie,
get with it. You’re a big country now,
you could be a big world force if you want, but if you can’t tell what 19-10
means then you’ve got a way to go!