28 February, 2009
GraphJam Fail
A few months ago, I made a submission to GraphJam, a division of the I Can Has Cheezburger empire, but as far as I can work out, it never got picked up so I'll post it here. Might be worth a bit of a giggle and it does have the advantage of being factually accurate.
26 February, 2009
It's the stupidity, stupid!
I've been listening to some more of Bobby Jindal's reply to Obama's speech and you've really got to marvel at the gall of some people. He's actually holding up Hurricane Katrina as an example of why government can't run things. That may seem like a slam-dunk argument but you have to think things through.
With Democratic local and state government and a Republican federal government at the time, that gave the three separate levels an excuse to all blame the incompetence on each other. The truth is that they all stuffed up mightily and there's more than enough blame to go around.
But this is where Jindal and the Republicans' utter gall comes into it. They assume that when government cocks something up, it's not a personal failure on their part, but a failure of government as a concept.
Having replaced Democrat Kathleen Blanco as governor, Jindal could have pointed to those previous failures and shown how much he'd learned from it and how much better his administration is at handling things now. But no, instead, his reading of the situation is that government simply can't manage things at all so it's better to just get out of the way and let others handle it.
That seems to be the Republicans' platform at the moment,
Vote for us. We promise we won't do anything!
We'll give it all to someone else. Anyone else. What have you got?
It makes you wonder what on earth government is for if not to govern.
Here's the real lesson:
Things don't fall in a heap just because they're managed by government.
Things fall in a heap when they are managed by stupid governments.
Don't use previous government failures as an excuse to delegate your duties, learn from those failures so that you can do the job properly this time. Government is not the problem. Stupidity is the problem.
With Democratic local and state government and a Republican federal government at the time, that gave the three separate levels an excuse to all blame the incompetence on each other. The truth is that they all stuffed up mightily and there's more than enough blame to go around.
But this is where Jindal and the Republicans' utter gall comes into it. They assume that when government cocks something up, it's not a personal failure on their part, but a failure of government as a concept.
Having replaced Democrat Kathleen Blanco as governor, Jindal could have pointed to those previous failures and shown how much he'd learned from it and how much better his administration is at handling things now. But no, instead, his reading of the situation is that government simply can't manage things at all so it's better to just get out of the way and let others handle it.
That seems to be the Republicans' platform at the moment,
Vote for us. We promise we won't do anything!
We'll give it all to someone else. Anyone else. What have you got?
It makes you wonder what on earth government is for if not to govern.
Here's the real lesson:
Things don't fall in a heap just because they're managed by government.
Things fall in a heap when they are managed by stupid governments.
Don't use previous government failures as an excuse to delegate your duties, learn from those failures so that you can do the job properly this time. Government is not the problem. Stupidity is the problem.
25 February, 2009
A Revolution?
There's a huge buzz going around about the "newly discovered" version of the Beatles' Revolution that appeared online this week.
I've listened to it a few times now and here's what I know:
It's labelled "Take 20," but it is clearly not a rough take. It has the same "Take two" edit as on the album version, John's voice sounds like it's been ADT'd and there are obviously overdubs. Not the kind of thing you do on a discarded take.
According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (the last word on all such matters), take 20 was in fact a tape reduction of take 18.
Huh?
Well, the Beatles only had 4-track tape machines at the time. So once the first three were filled up, they were mixed down to the fourth track and the other three were then re-used. This actually happened three times during the recording of Revolution 1. So all you hi-fi buffs take note - even the master recording is third generation! The "Take 20" announcement that we hear is for the benefit of the tape and was not part of the live recording session. That would explain the dropouts at the start of the leaked recording.
Even though take 18 was a long and meandering version of the song, they evidently overdubbed the whole of it - at least the first overdubs, anyway. There's not evidence on the newly discovered Take 20 of the brass section that was added later. And yes, some of the ad libs at the end were later used for the sound collage, Revolution 9.
So what we are hearing is the full length version of what would eventually be cut down to make the album version. Definitely a curio worth having if you can still find it.
I've listened to it a few times now and here's what I know:
It's labelled "Take 20," but it is clearly not a rough take. It has the same "Take two" edit as on the album version, John's voice sounds like it's been ADT'd and there are obviously overdubs. Not the kind of thing you do on a discarded take.
According to Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (the last word on all such matters), take 20 was in fact a tape reduction of take 18.
Huh?
Well, the Beatles only had 4-track tape machines at the time. So once the first three were filled up, they were mixed down to the fourth track and the other three were then re-used. This actually happened three times during the recording of Revolution 1. So all you hi-fi buffs take note - even the master recording is third generation! The "Take 20" announcement that we hear is for the benefit of the tape and was not part of the live recording session. That would explain the dropouts at the start of the leaked recording.
Even though take 18 was a long and meandering version of the song, they evidently overdubbed the whole of it - at least the first overdubs, anyway. There's not evidence on the newly discovered Take 20 of the brass section that was added later. And yes, some of the ad libs at the end were later used for the sound collage, Revolution 9.
So what we are hearing is the full length version of what would eventually be cut down to make the album version. Definitely a curio worth having if you can still find it.
Schoolyard politics
So the big news yesterday was that Tony Abbott called Kevin Rudd a "toxic bore." It's enough to make you think we don't have bushfires or an economic crisis to worry about.
I'll be the first to admit that Tony Abbott is usually more entertaining than Kevin Rudd. He's also a slimy, lying idiot.
Sorry Tony. Shit happens.
Also in US schoolyard politics, Republican chairman Michael Steele seemed happy to embrace the premise of a question about "retribution," on the three Republican senators who voted for the stimulus bill.
Retribution? For voting differently to the rest of the party?
I remember a time when Republicans embraced "mavericks."
Finally, Bobby Jindal says the US government shouldn't be monitoring volcanoes. Tell that to anyone who has lived through an eruption. You'd think the governor of Louisiana ought to understand the importance of keeping a lookout for potential disaster.
I'll be the first to admit that Tony Abbott is usually more entertaining than Kevin Rudd. He's also a slimy, lying idiot.
Sorry Tony. Shit happens.
Also in US schoolyard politics, Republican chairman Michael Steele seemed happy to embrace the premise of a question about "retribution," on the three Republican senators who voted for the stimulus bill.
Retribution? For voting differently to the rest of the party?
I remember a time when Republicans embraced "mavericks."
Finally, Bobby Jindal says the US government shouldn't be monitoring volcanoes. Tell that to anyone who has lived through an eruption. You'd think the governor of Louisiana ought to understand the importance of keeping a lookout for potential disaster.
21 February, 2009
Rocktails
It's Saturday night - time for a couple of Rocktails.
The Radiohead
Add a nip of absinthe to cider and serve over cough drops and ice.
Add sour cream and chill.
Add celery juice and Marmite.
If that still doesn't turn people off, add grass, sawdust, pea soup and iron filings until something works.
The Oasis
Fill a pint glass with gin & tonic, Jack Daniel's and red wine, then throw it at your brother.
The Radiohead
Add a nip of absinthe to cider and serve over cough drops and ice.
Add sour cream and chill.
Add celery juice and Marmite.
If that still doesn't turn people off, add grass, sawdust, pea soup and iron filings until something works.
The Oasis
Fill a pint glass with gin & tonic, Jack Daniel's and red wine, then throw it at your brother.
20 February, 2009
Shopping at NQR
I have no intentions for this ’blog to turn into another one of those tiresome “what happened to me today and how I feel about it” affairs, but I did want to share something that happened this afternoon.
For those who haven’t heard of it, NQR stands for Not Quite Right and it’s a chain of grocery stores that carry discontinued items, products close to their date, excess stock and other such items that are still perfectly safe for consumption, just not quite right. It’s the kind of place you check for bargains first before doing the balance of your shop at a proper supermarket. It was on such a bargain hunt that I spied some corn chips.
Now, I don’t think there are many local variations on corn chips. Where-ever you're from and whatever brand you’re looking at, they probably come in Original (ie: plain salted), Sour Cream & Chili, Cheese, Nacho Cheese, Cheese Supreme and I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Cheese. I think that’s partly why my eye was caught by some Rositas Guacamole corn chips.
It’s a flavour that, to me, is an obvious one as soon as you see it but I never would have thought of it before. And a reason I’d never heard of it before, and was now seeing it at NQR, was probably what they look like inside.
I know it looks like they have been sitting there for three months, (mind you, if you left corn chips sitting there for three months, apart from some sogginess, they would probably look exactly the same as when you first put them there) but these are fresh out of the packet.
Did they really need to try to make them look like guacamole? I mean, that’s got to be food colouring, right? Nothing natural is that colour. Well, nothing that’s natural and edible, anyway. If you look again at the packet, you’ll see the picture is very green, but that still doesn’t prepare you for their real colour. In fact, the photo doesn’t do them justice. They really are the colour of mould.
They don’t taste too bad if you close your eyes, but green corn chips are definitely Not Quite Right.
Another item I bought out of sheer fascination for its existence, was a 175ml bottle of Coke Zero.
For a while, I never understood why the two big cola producers made two separate sugar-free versions. It turns out that in America, Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame, while Coke Zero is sweetened with the slightly more natural sugar derivative, Splenda. However, in Australia, both Diet Coke and Coke Zero (and Pepsi Max for that matter) are sweetened with aspartame. My guess is that they produce the Zero/Max versions to promote to men who find anything with “diet” in the name a bit too girly. They should probably call it Diet Bloke.
It might be just me, but when looking around a place like NQR, I often wonder what it is about the stock that isn’t quite right. For instance, the special pink ribbon Tim Tams are probably leftover stock from the promotion which has now ended. I’m guessing a lot of stock there was produced for export but missed the boat because it’s made in Australia but I’ve never seen it anywhere else. Then there’s the obvious stuff that’s past its best-before date and mistakes like green corn chips.
But the tiny coke really bewilders me. Here's a picture to give you some idea of the actual size. I do have reasonably big hands but not that big.
A whole bunch of people at Coca Cola, who doubtlessly get paid a lot more than me, must have agreed that producing this novelty-sized glass bottle was a good idea. Then there is all the engineering involved in producing the bottle itself. And I bought it for something like 33¢. It was somewhat heartening that the girl at the checkout agreed with me about the amusing and slightly depressing pointlessness of it all. Why did they make this thing? I know health professionals are advocating for smaller sizes but this is ridiculous. And I certainly hope it’s not aimed at small children because they should not be on artificial sweeteners. My guess is that it might actually have been intended for showbags and promotions since there’s no bar-code on the bottle. But even so, was the regular 330ml bottle too big?
By the way, I’m sorry if any of this looks like product placement. If Rositas, Coca Cola or Arnotts want to sling me a few bucks, I won’t say no.
Update: I was wrong.
The US versions of Diet Coke and Coke Zero are both sweetened with aspartame. So Coke Zero is "Diet Bloke" in all regions.
For those who haven’t heard of it, NQR stands for Not Quite Right and it’s a chain of grocery stores that carry discontinued items, products close to their date, excess stock and other such items that are still perfectly safe for consumption, just not quite right. It’s the kind of place you check for bargains first before doing the balance of your shop at a proper supermarket. It was on such a bargain hunt that I spied some corn chips.
Now, I don’t think there are many local variations on corn chips. Where-ever you're from and whatever brand you’re looking at, they probably come in Original (ie: plain salted), Sour Cream & Chili, Cheese, Nacho Cheese, Cheese Supreme and I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Cheese. I think that’s partly why my eye was caught by some Rositas Guacamole corn chips.
It’s a flavour that, to me, is an obvious one as soon as you see it but I never would have thought of it before. And a reason I’d never heard of it before, and was now seeing it at NQR, was probably what they look like inside.
I know it looks like they have been sitting there for three months, (mind you, if you left corn chips sitting there for three months, apart from some sogginess, they would probably look exactly the same as when you first put them there) but these are fresh out of the packet.
Did they really need to try to make them look like guacamole? I mean, that’s got to be food colouring, right? Nothing natural is that colour. Well, nothing that’s natural and edible, anyway. If you look again at the packet, you’ll see the picture is very green, but that still doesn’t prepare you for their real colour. In fact, the photo doesn’t do them justice. They really are the colour of mould.
They don’t taste too bad if you close your eyes, but green corn chips are definitely Not Quite Right.
= = = =
Another item I bought out of sheer fascination for its existence, was a 175ml bottle of Coke Zero.
For a while, I never understood why the two big cola producers made two separate sugar-free versions. It turns out that in America, Diet Coke is sweetened with aspartame, while Coke Zero is sweetened with the slightly more natural sugar derivative, Splenda. However, in Australia, both Diet Coke and Coke Zero (and Pepsi Max for that matter) are sweetened with aspartame. My guess is that they produce the Zero/Max versions to promote to men who find anything with “diet” in the name a bit too girly. They should probably call it Diet Bloke.
It might be just me, but when looking around a place like NQR, I often wonder what it is about the stock that isn’t quite right. For instance, the special pink ribbon Tim Tams are probably leftover stock from the promotion which has now ended. I’m guessing a lot of stock there was produced for export but missed the boat because it’s made in Australia but I’ve never seen it anywhere else. Then there’s the obvious stuff that’s past its best-before date and mistakes like green corn chips.
But the tiny coke really bewilders me. Here's a picture to give you some idea of the actual size. I do have reasonably big hands but not that big.
A whole bunch of people at Coca Cola, who doubtlessly get paid a lot more than me, must have agreed that producing this novelty-sized glass bottle was a good idea. Then there is all the engineering involved in producing the bottle itself. And I bought it for something like 33¢. It was somewhat heartening that the girl at the checkout agreed with me about the amusing and slightly depressing pointlessness of it all. Why did they make this thing? I know health professionals are advocating for smaller sizes but this is ridiculous. And I certainly hope it’s not aimed at small children because they should not be on artificial sweeteners. My guess is that it might actually have been intended for showbags and promotions since there’s no bar-code on the bottle. But even so, was the regular 330ml bottle too big?
By the way, I’m sorry if any of this looks like product placement. If Rositas, Coca Cola or Arnotts want to sling me a few bucks, I won’t say no.
Update: I was wrong.
The US versions of Diet Coke and Coke Zero are both sweetened with aspartame. So Coke Zero is "Diet Bloke" in all regions.
19 February, 2009
Breaking News
Following widespread criticism from the conservative side of politics, the Obama administration has released a revised version of its stimulus package.
The new package aims to give every US citizen a slap in the face with a wet fish.
Some Republicans have vowed to oppose the deal saying they are still holding out for a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's believed the new bill will receive broad bipartisan support.
The new package aims to give every US citizen a slap in the face with a wet fish.
Some Republicans have vowed to oppose the deal saying they are still holding out for a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but it's believed the new bill will receive broad bipartisan support.
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