"Sharing" Music

This is a bit of spill over from a comment to a post on Bens blog (presently called Refracted Ambiguity with Polar Bear) regarding his old school music piracy.

I will freely admit I was a co-conspirator in his nefarious orchestration of 90 minute cassettes and music “sharing”. But I stand by my previous statement: Those tapes were conveniently packaged 90 minutes of joy.

The real truth is that by the time I met Ben, I was an old hand at copyright infringement. My pirating career began at a very young age, sitting in front of the television with a microphone in hand recording theme songs (sometimes even whole episodes) to various shows on the ABC such as The Goodies, Dr Who and Monkey on an already outdated and cumbersome reel to reel player. Ahh the nostalgic smiles tangled magnetic tape still brings me.

Regardless of how technology has accelerated the speed of music appropriation, everyone should learn the difference:

THEFT – removes the original.

COPYING – duplicates the original, for private use, leaving the original in place.

PIRACY – hijacking and robbery on the high seas.

COPYRITE INFRINGEMENT – producing unauthorised copies of the original for profit.

First Contact Ambassador

In the news recently, the UN has plans to nominate an astrophysicist from Malaysia to act as Earths official "first contact" for any aliens we may have contact with.

See the article in the Courier Mail for more.

Here's a paraphrased version of what Stephen Hawkings has to say about extra terrestrials in his new documentary series:

"With the universe made up of some 100 billion galaxies each containing hundreds of millions of stars, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. To make contact with alien races is a little too risky. A visit by extraterrestrials to Earth would be like Christopher Columbus arriving in the Americas, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

So there you go, don't talk to strangers. Especially if they come from another planet.

 

But lets not forget the Wow! signal.

Way back in 1977 on the 15th of August, the SETI apparatus lit up with an incoming narrow-band radio signal from outer space. Exactly the sort of signal the system was looking for, a signal so extraordinary that the astronomer on duty scribbled "Wow!" on the printout. the signal originated from the Chi Sagittarii star group, part of the Sagittarius constellation. The signal was over 30 times louder than normal deep space. No terrestrial or astronomical explanation has been found for what caused the signal. Scientist have ruled out satellites, asteroids, meteorites, ground based transmissions, aircraft, and background radiation. The Wow frequency was between 1420.356 MHz and 1420.4556 MHz . This frequency is significant because, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and hydrogen resonates at 1420.40575177 MHz, so it’s believed extraterrestrials might use that frequency to transmit a strong signal.

Why is it that no one is seeing the big picture and connecting the dots. At the very moment the Wow signal was received, Elvis Presley was sitting in a dentist's chair being treated for a toothache. Presley returned home from his appointment and died the following morning. Obviously, the Wow signal was received by his fillings, and was a message for him to come home.

Faecal Transplant

While some bacteria is bad, and makes us sick, there's other bacteria that wriggles around inside us and helps us digest food. Regardless of how much Disinfectant you want to spray around the house, the fact is that without these germs you're not going to be in good health at all. On rare occasions it's possible for these bacteria within us to die off, raising all sorts of medical issues. Usually from things like high levels of antibiotics or poisoning.

But not to fear, medical science has the solution in the delightful form of a faecal transplant, wherein faeces of a donor loaded with healthy new bacteria is injected into the patients colon with the plan to make a new home for themselves in the intestine. The procedure is the easy part the hard part is finding a suitable donor. You have to ask around your family and friends if they could help you out with a crappy favour you need. If you don't have any family or friends you could try putting an ad in the paper.

Once the donor has been found, they need to collect around five days supply of their feces and store it properly by putting it in their fridge during the five day period. After that, generally the donor transports their entire collection of excrement to the hospital. Because their donated supply can't be frozen, if they are travelling long distance they will need to check it in as carry-on luggage, not cargo, and explain everything to the airport staff.

The donors excrement is then mixed with saline to create a supply of five to ten days worth of enemas administered at the hospital. The donors payload can also be administered through a nasogastric tube, delivering the bacteria directly to the small intestine. Or in other words a tube is inserted through the nose, down through the stomach and excrement is pumped in. Occasionally both methods are used to increase effectiveness, attacking the problem from both ends as it were.

These days everything's about awareness, so I'm thinking I should set up a booth in the mall and make everyone purchase brown ribbons and soft toys. With a bit of support it could become a movement.



Fristajlo

This guy is awesome.  I would absolutely stop and give him money if he was busking.



I can't stop playing it.
When is his CD going to be released?

Jane Russell Fembot

As shown in this vintage comic, it turns out Jane Russell was the original fembot, significantly predating other depictions of fembots.

Let's face it, who wouldn't want a Jane Russell robot.  Here's some of the advertising taglines used on her movie posters:
"How'd you like to tussle with Russell?" - The Outlaw (1943)
"Jane Russell and Frank Sinatra...What a pair!" - Double Dynamite (1951)
"They were two of a kind!" - His Kind of Woman (1951) 
"Warm Lips...Hot Lead!" - Montana Belle (1952)
"The Two M-M-Marvels Of Our Age In The Wonder Musical Of The World!" - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
"Jane Russell in 3-D. It'll Knock both your eyes out!" - The French Line (1954)
"Skin Diver Action...Aqua-lung Thrills!" - Underwater! (1955)
"They Don't come ANY BIGGER" - The Tall Men (1955)
"SEE 'EM SIZZLE IN THE BIG, BUXOM, BEAUTIFUL MUSICAL!" - Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)
"Jane Russell shakes her tambourines and drives Cornel Wilde!" - Hot Blood (1956)
"The hottest bundle ever hijacked!" - The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

That's what's missing in todays movie promotions, honesty in advertising.
One of her movies should have been called "Gentlemen Prefer Bots".

Here's a link to an interview with a Journalist and a robot head that's had a real persons thoughts and memories uploaded, creating a very vague and confused artificial intelligence. It longs for a real life so it can go outside and do gardening or conspire to takeover the planet.
BINA48
Not quite the fembot that the well known Japanese Actroid is, but what do you expect from a non-profit organisation.

Bart Jarm Dao

There's an old saying about swords:
"Practicing 3000 cuts a day will make you an average swordsman."

By my count the Bart Jarm Dao (butterfly sabre form) contains 71 cuts (plus all the blocking etc.).  Can be counted as more and can be counted as less depending on how you count define a cut.  The exact number is less important than the fact there's a ripe amount of technique in the form.

71 is a nice number numerologically as it can be summed to 8 (7+1), which is a good Chinese kung fu number.  If I can't have a tidy number like 50 or 100, then I want a good esoteric number!  So the cuts counted shall be 71.

So the maths is 3000/71 = 42.25352112676056338... I was hoping it would be 42 sets because that's the meaning of life. But it's a bit short, 71 x 42 = 2982. 
Let's try 43 sets.  71 x 43 = 3053. That's about right.

This afternoon I did 43 sets of the Bart Jarm Dao, and now I am one step towards being average.  The only flaw I see in this plan is that the old saying gives no clue to how long this will take...

It starts off fun and games

Well the first post.
I'm planning this blog to be about interesting things I've seen, some ill-planned ideas, opinions on movies TV and music, possibly some poorly thought through social commentary, half a loaf of kung fu, and the occasional evil science project.

Things don't always go to plan...