Overanalysis

Boag's beer have been showing a bunch of ads for quite a while now showing magical rivers in Tasmania that make things better, such as this ad, this ad or this ad that basically explains the premise.

My question is if you put that beer back into the river, would it come out as a better beer? Or is Boag's supposed to be the pinnacle and people have to keep on putting the bottles into the water over and over again to get bottles of Boag's?

Zombie Apocalypse

I found this on Pharyngula. The CDC have released guidelines on what to do if there is a Zombie Apocalypse. It provides a good overview on things you need for basically any other disaster except a Zombie Apocalypse.

For one thing nowhere do they mention that you need some sort of weapon, whether it is a shotgun, or baseball bat, or bowling ball or banjo. Neither do they suggest some relevant songs to play on your battery powered radio (like "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen).

And lastly they've decided to ignore all scientific evidence on the matter by saying the following:

If zombies did start roaming the streets, CDC would conduct an investigation much like any other disease outbreak. CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine). It’s likely that an investigation of this scenario would seek to accomplish several goals: determine the cause of the illness, the source of the infection/virus/toxin, learn how it is transmitted and how readily it is spread, how to break the cycle of transmission and thus prevent further cases, and how patients can best be treated. Not only would scientists be working to identify the cause and cure of the zombie outbreak, but CDC and other federal agencies would send medical teams and first responders to help those in affected areas (I will be volunteering the young nameless disease detectives for the field work).

See if they had read the literature they would know that trying to find a cure is pointless. As Munz, et al. showed in their paper "When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection" showed basically the only way to deal with such an event is to kill them as quickly and efficiently as possible instead of bothering to find a way to cure them. I wouldn't say that we shouldn't work on finding a cure since that would be very useful, but at some point you're going to have to accept that killing them is the best option.

So in conclusion, the CDC provides valuable advice for pretty much any disaster except for a zombie apocalypse where mathematical modelling shows that what they want to do will pretty much doom everyone.

The Rapture

Well apparently today is the Rapture. Apparently. As I write this it's 5:47 PM (UTC+9:30) and I just heard thunder. Surely this can't be a coincidence... hang on... yes. Yes it can be.

I base this on the simple fact that it's supposed to be at 6PM local time everywhere and unless God obeys the international date line we should have heard of the destruction of Kiribati (UTC+12,13,14). If God doesn't obey the date line then which time zone will he follow? Kiribati's furthest points lie within UTC+14, which is technically the same time zone as Hawaii (UTC -10). Would that mean that Kiribati will only undergo the rapture on some of the islands at 6PM UTC+12 and then undergo it again when it hits UTC -10 and -11? Or would the people of Hawaii be able to just move to the now destroyed Kiribati islands when they are destroyed 24 hours before Hawaii is?

You would have thought the people claiming this would have sorted this out by now.

Well I'll give an update after 6PM if I'm still alive or haven't somehow been raptured. Although I don't really find being forced to live in an underwater city appealing. Especially one based on Objectivist values.

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UPDATE: It's 6:04 PM in Adelaide right now. The rapture appears to have been some thunder about 5:45 and then a little rain. No reports on rapture people as of yet, but considering that there hasn't been anything from the East I'm going to assume that nobody was raptured.

That either means that nothing happened (which is most likely) or that everyone in Australia is fucked.

The Big 5 - The Eurovision Final

Well they are the only songs that I haven't heard yet so I'm going to just post my comments on them since my opinions haven't really changed for the other songs.

France. This was a pretty good song, but I wouldn't have said that it was a winner. I just don't think that it would have reached enough people to do really well.

Italy. I was very, very wrong. This wasn't a crap song at all and I now think that it thoroughly deserved to do well. I guess they just chose the crappest section of the song to play or something the last two nights.

UK. So the boyband's song is technically a song for the World Cup, but since England didn't give the people who decided who would host knighthoods and money I guess they figured that they needed to try and recoup some of their losses with a song that I don't find interesting at all.

Germany. Lena again. This time singing a more serious song which isn't as fun as 'Satellite'. If this wasn't being sung in Eurovision people would be commenting that it represents her maturing into a more serious singer or something, at Eurovision with Germany hosting it comes off as more "we don't want to win but we don't want to make that obvious". It ended up coming 10th according to the BBC. She still does jump around the English speaking world when it comes to her singing accent though.

Spain. It's not a horrible song, but it is one that I wouldn't have said had a chance at winning even if I hadn't learned the results before watching them perform.

Eurovision Semi Final 2

And this is the one for the second semi final.

There seems to be a bit more German in this one.

Good old fake miniaturisation, it does give a strange look for Germany.

Bosnia and Herzegovina. For a guy like Dino I wasn't expecting that kind of music. Nice to see the double bass player can play two instruments. I wonder if the triangle requires as much training as the bass. On to the lyrics: 1 to 100/ times by two/ these lyrics are stupid/ but not the tune.
Wave to the audience double bass player and show us that you aren't actually playing on stage.

Austria. Will their phrase be in the Austrian dialect? And will I be able to understand it? The answers: Not that I can tell, Yes. Now we listen to their power ballad. They've gone with the whole "single pretty girl on stage" thing that Lena used very well to win. Except Lena had a fun catchy song whereas Austria see, to be taking this really seriously what with the coating the stage in dry ice thing. Stop being so serious Austria. But then they might win.

The Netherlands. It's another song that I don't care about. Well I think I'll do other things like write "Bosnia and Herzegovina” or run this post through a spell checker since Firefox 4 doesn't seem to have a UK or Australian English dictionary.

Belgium. Ooh another a Capella band. Nice to see German shown on their postcard thing considering that it is an official language of that country. I'm starting to think that Eurovision sucks the life out of songs. I normally like a Capella but I don't really like this, I mean if I had a choice between this and say, Finland's song from yesterday, then I'm going to go with this.

Slovakia. Hang on... you can go surfing in Germany? Really? Since when? Twins. A band name that was chosen because they couldn't be bothered coming up with a proper name. Then again they are good looking so I can forgive the crappy name. I haven't seen any out of place flags tonight, like the Mexican one yesterday. Quickly checking to see if they got through told me that they didn't and that their name is actually TWiiNS which I assume means that they have a sponsorship deal with Nintendo or something.

Oh God the Ukraine. They aren't surprising me with their costume though. And boo Julia, I don't care if Kseniya swam at Manly.

Ukraine. Actually I change my mind; I was expecting the weird shit from them like they had in the last couple of years. Instead it's pretty good song with some interesting sand art that makes up the background.

Moldova. Hey, they've chosen costumes in the style of their eastern neighbour. Except that they aren't weird enough. The song is ok I guess. But I can't get over those hats. Do they need planning permits for them? Or are their reads really shaped like that? And why do we need to know that the lead singer has a monocle.

Sweden. Hmm... Vikings in Köln. I really want to know what that is for. You'll be popular? I'm sure having a giant pokèball on the screen will really make you popular with the ladies. It could be worse though, I could be watching Justin Bieber. I get the feeling that Sweden don't really care this year. See they've just put their singer back in his box for easy transportation back to Sweden.

Cyprus. Another breakup song. Only with traditional instruments. They have weird dancing sperm on the screen. And a girl who is armed with a morning star that isn't spikey. Is she now covered in snakes? Does that count as a costume change?

Bulgaria. Another non-English song. There aren't enough of them in Eurovision. It's also like listening to Pink or P!nk or however it is she spells her name only in Bulgarian.

Macedonia or as Eurovision puts it FYR Macedonia. I think that is what they call interpretive dance. I think. I find this song to be tolerable. Hey an accordion. And then the song turns into some kind of fusion of traditional Slavic music with modern music.

Israel. Will they get through and be guaranteed points from Germany? I don't know considering that their song is called 'Ding Dong'. And now I hear her sing and I say, no. She isn't going to get through. This is a terrible song. Since I can't be bothered with this song I'm going to give a little fun fact. Did you know that the reason the Republic of Macedonia was known as FYROM was because of an issue with the Greeks over the name.

Slovenia. Ooh. Piano-y. The lyrics are quite mainstream. This song will get through. And I think it might do quite well.

Romania. Julia says the song is catchy. is she right? The answer at the end of this section. The music is definitely catchy. The lyrics are very Eurovision.

More commercials, more Schwarzkopf. Probably that Virgin commercial that I didn't get last night even though I should have based on the male to female ratio of the ad.

Oh fuck. Jedward. They deserve to be machine-gunned. Why couldn't they have just shown then Slovak twins.

Estonia. It's like the Estonian version of Glee is filming a Eurovision themed episode. Hey they just changed style. Now I see why Julia said it was like a Rock Eisteddfod act.

Belarus. Jets of fire, it's not like someone hasn't done that before *rolls eyes*. If she loves Belarus so much why isn't she singing this in Belarussian? It's one of those pop/traditional music fusions. I know fire usually makes things better, but I've just found an exception to that rule. It does not make this song any better whatsoever. Well we've learned that Anastasia Vinnikova loves Belarus.

Latvia. It's Latvian Justin Bieber, only more tattooed. Now is he saying "Angels in disguise" or "Angels in the skies", or both? I wonder why they're wearing bowties? Did they lose a bet or something?

Denmark. This is some kind of ballad. It's not horrible; the lead singer has silly hair though. Maybe Jedward styled it for him before he went on stage. He's running away, maybe he doesn't want to be there... nope he's change his mind.

Last song is Ireland. Jedward. Go away. I hope this isn't Ireland actually trying to actually copy that episode of Father Ted. Apparently these people are popular in England so I won't be surprised if they get 12 points from the UK.

19 countries many languages. Too bad nearly every song is in English.

Will Stefan Raab redefine the second again tonight? Find out after we see snippets of all the songs again.

Things that don't go together. Or Stefan Raab puts his foot in his mouth.

And now we get to see classical break dancing. Watching this makes me wonder if ballet was originally break dancing for that generation that became gentrified. The techno sound does make it better. Just the piano gives the impression that these guys are trying to do ballet and failing at it. Now they really are just showing us ballet. Got to admit they are talented though. The famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, too bad they added a bunch of rubbish when there are plenty of good versions of it around. And now they're done.

More Big 5 stuff. Did I just see Johnny Depp in the Spanish clip? Italy is crap, which is sad considering the type of music, and Lena is singing a song that I'm sure she knows she isn't going to win.

Estonian glee is through. Romania. Well it was catchy. Moldova? Really? But their hats are so pointy. Ireland. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKK!!!!! Bosnia and Herzegovina. Good on them. Denmark. Not really surprising. Austria. God. Ukraine. More sand tomorrow. And now for the second runner up Slovenia. Which I could see would get through. And that means our Miss Eurovision Semi Final 2 winner is Sweden. Which is expected since that's what they do.

So it look like Israel won't be getting easy points from Germany and although Anastasia Vinnikova loves Belarus it turns out Europe doesn't.

Eurovision Semi Final 1

This is a post I wrote when Blogger wasn't working. So I'm posting it now, after copying it from Word. Europeans would have seen this on Wednesday but Australia shows them a day later, so I'll know the final result before actually seeing the final, which I probably only will when I get my hands on the UK version because I prefer Graham Norton's commentary.

So without further ado I present to you my thoughts of the first semi final taken as I thought them up on the spot:

Poland are somewhat ok. It does make me regret not having any alcohol but I don’t really have the time this weekend to have a hangover.

Norway song sounded like a crappy version of that Lady Gaga song that rips off that Madonna song. Only with more Swahili.

I seem to have missed Albania. It says a lot about how good the song was.

Armenia’s song is ok. Very mainstream pop. I see that the singer happens to have dressed to emphasise certain err... traits that

Turkey. My back is to the TV and still it sounds like Green Day on anti-depressants. Now I turn around and I see a contortionist in a cage. That’s something that I expect the Ukraine to do. I already knew that they wouldn’t make it into the next round and I see why. I started ignoring them so I’ve missed the big bird that Sam and Julia were talking about afterwards.

On to the commercials. So this is the first break. I’m going to get sick of seeing the same commercials over and over again. I will see the Schwartzkopf ad over and over again. I probably will watch the show where they send Australians to countries like Iraq so they can see what the asylum seekers are leaving.

Serbia have managed to create the ultimate snark-proof song. There is pretty much nothing that you can say that demeans this song. It’s quite good for Eurovision but most of the last 5 songs are crap. The colours probably aren’t good if you’re epileptic.

Russia. I hate this song already. I don’t know how it managed to get through.

Switzerland. Nice way for the Germans to show that their neighbour has 4 official languages. I have no idea what this song is about. I heard the start of a better, more popular song, and then I just started listening to the tune. The background was brought to you by Paper Mario.

Georgia. One more day? For what? Making a good song? Not a horrid song, but here comes the rapping guy. Like that’s going to win.

Finland. Our Aussie commentators are referring to Lordi. How Lordi will this be? Not very so far. I think this guy was supposed to be entered last year, when everyone else was doing songs like this.

Malta. I think they managed to pick up Greece’s song for this year on the cheap.

San Marino. Another ballad that I already know doesn’t get through. I don’t care so I’ve stopped listening. That’s probably why it didn’t get through.

Croatia. The guy has a stupid hat. Sam Pang said that it would get people playing drinking games really drunk. So let’s see. Costume change, I think that was a wave to a camera, costume change, I think I’ve missed the half-octave key change too.

Iceland. It’s an entry for a country that has no money. It might work in a song contest that isn’t Eurovision, or a bluegrass competition, or a jazz competition, or a country competition or probably any music competition at all.

More commercials. Did they just dub over the sexy girl in the Schwartzkopf ad? Oh well they’ve got a few different ads so I’m not going to go crazy like I did during the World Cup with that QANTAS ad with the Enya song.

They’re interviewing people. What is the Russian guy bad at? Singing? It’s singing right? Right?

Hungary. She’s like a bad transvestite. Now if this was the Romanian entry I could probably have made some Rocky Horror references. I have no idea what the song was though.

Portugal. It’s last year’s song because it’s very colourful except that it’s crappy even by Eurovision standards. It probably belongs in a children’s show, but would you let your kids watch a show with a guy who looks like a 70’s porn star? I think that this group was probably the only band that Portugal could afford.

Lithuania. I don’t mind this song. It’s something that you’d hear in a musical. However I don’t think the song alone will be the reason that she gets through.

Azerbaijan. They tried very hard last year. This year I don’t think they did.

Greece. I went into this song expecting crap and got something that wasn’t as crap as I expected. It doesn’t mean that it’s a good song though.

Oh, they’re playing the big 5. Spain are ok it seems. France is very operatic. Italy have some kind of Michael Buble guy who can’t sing in English. UK = boyband. Germany has Lena again, only not as fun and quirky.

Ooh, Jan Ola Sand I don’t really care, especially I’m going to see him tomorrow and on Sunday when they finally play the final over here.

Serbia. Not surprised. Lithuania. Not surprised. Greece. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Azerbaijan. Not surprised. Georgia. Not surprised. Switzerland? Really? But I’m sure that they just nicked some other song. Hungary. Eh, I think this is the start of the “not quite as crap as the other crap songs. Finland. Bugger. Russia. I’m sure there were less crap songs then this one. Padding for 10. And it’s... Iceland. But they’re pretty bad, but then again if Russia could get in then I guess there is nothing stopping Iceland.

I must say that Julia and Sam are getting better at this. I must find somewhere where I can watch their finals performance in it's entirety.

Cat-less

I'm writing this about 20 minutes after finding out that the cat has died.

We all knew that this was coming soon, she was old and deaf and we think she was going blind.

I'm not really a cat person, I've always preferred dogs but Moosbach has always just been there. The strange name is because she was named after a character from a Loriot sketch.

Getting her is one of my earliest memories, we got her as a kitten from on of my mum's friends over 21 years ago. She was a Devon rex cross moggie with a grey coat with black stripes on it.

One of her favourite past-times was annoying me. It wasn't that I was scared of her, I just didn't like her sitting on me, something that she tried to do often. She finally did succeed a couple of weeks ago though so her life wasn't a total waste.

She did find a use for my cupboard though. She loved sleeping in there as my room was typically quiet enough for her to take one of the 8 or 9 naps needed to get enough energy for her main snooze. She did find, however, that my bed wasn't the best place to sleep on, until she would inevitably forget and then sleep on my bed. I was woken up a few times by a cat pawing at my feet because I moved and knocked her.

And now she's gone.

It will be strange being cat-less. I guess it's because she was just there, one of those constants that will be around forever.

Storm

If you haven't seen it yet you should check out this video of Tim Minchin's "Storm":

Rebecca Black

Aka "How I'm jumping on the bandwagon really really late just because I really should update this blog".

So I first heard about this song on Triple J. It was a talking point on the Doctor's show. And then I just learned that Simon Cowell likes her by which I assume he means he can see lots and lots of money because she is infamous.

So then I decided to watch the damn video. I did learn one thing, apparently Youtube updates likes and dislikes in real time since while I've been waiting for the video to load the number of dislikes went from 399,500 to 400,080 when I just looked at it then and it's still climbing. The number of likes is climbing very very slowly.

So what do I think of a 13 year old girls music video?

Well I'm more or less going to kind of liveblog this. The time stamps are where I pause the video.

0:45 One of the things I knew about this song was that Black didn't have anything to do with writing it, I also know that she's more or less been crucified for this song. Right now I think that Clarence Jey and Patrice Wilson should face charges of some sort for the lyrics. I get the feeling that this song is probably a violation of the Geneva conventions or something.

1:08. All the people in that car look like they are about her age. So how the hell did the boy get a license to drive this car? I'm probably over analysing this to keep my sanity.

Well it looks like the flash plugin broke while writing the above. I guess I now have to wait for it to load again. Current dislikes: 401,325

So while I wait I found an acoustic version that she sung on ABC News. Well, I'm going to go on record and say that I "liked" this acoustic version. By "liked" I mean I pressed the thumbs up button on the video. Perhaps my brain has melted from the minute of the other version but this version is at least 100 times better.

Having said that I would say that Black shows some promise as a singer.

1:16. Why are they driving around at night? Where are they going? Where can they go, and if they were going somewhere shouldn't they be there already? And isn't it dangerous to sit like that in a moving vehicle?

1:38 Why are you still deciding which seat to take? You're clearly in the back seat. It's where you've been since the first chorus. Didn't the ARK Music Factory director look at the words before filming this?

1:43 Why does California have so many under age drivers? What are the Police doing to stop this plague of under age drivers? And how the hell are they getting insurance for these cars?

2:26 Lyrics written by Cpt. Obvious. And I'm also a little confused. Should I be thankful that I don't have epilepsy or should I be cursing the fact that I don't because it would make this song end sooner.

2:36 What's with the black guy? And I had a mondegreen moment there. I though he was continuing a theme by pointing out that he was black. So I listened to that bit again. I then thought that he was saying that he was Rebecca Black. Turns out it was "R. B. Rebecca Black". In a way I wish that I didn't learn that, it would have made the song so much more enjoyable.

2:51 "We gonna have fun". That sounds creepy. Maybe he's one of those chaperone guys who's just a little too enthusiastic.

3:48 The song is over. Finally.

So what have I learned. Well that Ark Music Factory must have a pile of cheap songs that were written for entrants in the Eurovision, or the children's Eurovision. And continuing on the Eurovision theme that Black is like Sweden in 2009, she has talent but it doesn't fit with the song. Then again with those lyrics I can't think of a single artist that could turn them into anything remotely adequate.

And having said that I appear to be wrong. See when I wrote that it was about 1am yesterday. In that time I've found a pretty good fake Bob Dylan cover of this song.

Having had that time to think more about the song has let me draw the following conclusion. This song is hilarious. I personally think that it's something that is So Bad It's Good. Although of course Your Mileage May Vary.

I don't really agree with the whole "worst song in existence". There are plenty of worse songs out there. For example if I was forced between this song and anything by Justin Bieber then I'm going with "Friday".

So in conclusion:

1. ARK Music Factory really needs to invest in better songwriters.
2. Rebecca Black needs to find her own singing style instead of being forced into one that doesn't suit her.
3. It's hilarious because it's so bad.

Somebody to Love

If someone talks about the song "Somebody to Love" which band do you think of?

I think of Jefferson Airplane.

My parents think of Queen.

A few people I know would think of the Boogie Pimps, which was a cover of the Jefferson Airplane song. It's an okay cover, but the film clip did have Natasha Mealey in it.

Someone called Leighton Meester also wrote a song by that name.

Now if you typed in "somebody to love" into Youtube what do you think the first result is?

Well it's none of them.

It's Justin Bieber.

Justin. Fucking. Bieber.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with people these days? Jefferson Airplane was a pioneer in Psychedelic Rock. Queen is one of the worlds best selling artists.

Yet Bieber gets top spot on Youtube.

Dwell on that for a bit.

Mr. Squiggle Dies

Norman Hetherington, the man behind Mr. Squiggle died yesterday aged 89. Mr. Squiggle was Australia's longest running children's show.

I loved watching that show as a kid. For those who don't know Mr. Squiggle was the man from the moon, who came and visited us in his pet rocket named Rocket and would draw these pictures from canvasses with squiggles and lines and dots. When he finished it was up to Rebecca, who was basically the token human, to orientate the picture correctly so we knew what it was.

As to the title, Norman Hetherington was Mr. Squiggle. As well as creating the show he drew the pictures and gave Mr. Squiggle his voice. To pretty much every Australian who watched the show as kids he was Mr. Squiggle.

What I don't like about Mafia II

It's the game that, really, just kept me distracted until Civilization V came out. (As an aside, the latter is pretty much the reason I haven't posted anything.)

I really enjoyed Mafia and I was hoping for something similar with this one. Instead it really did go backwards.

Not graphically of course, graphically Empire Bay is basically scenery porn. The choice of music is good and the story is still good. And the fact that quite a few of the places are designed to be destroyed is nice too.

However it's not really a game that you can play through more then once. Maybe you'll play it through again to get the Playboy "articles" or you'll be playing it for the achievements.

That being said there is quite a lot missing. Empire Bay has a sort of GTA III feel. The city is alive but it isn't. One of the things that made Mafia work was the fact that it felt like the city was alive. You'd see trolley cars on the streets, the rail system worked, people would do things and the aforementioned public transport system actually worked. You could get on a trolley or a train and travel instead of using a car. Mafia II gets rid of that. The rail system doesn't exist, neither does the subway, and the buses don't do anything.

It's more a shell of a city then a city itself.

The other thing is that the main storyline is pretty much it. What sucks is that they basically set up side missions that never existed. In Mafia after some of the missions you could either go back to Salieri's and end the mission or you could choose to go to Luca for a "steal a car" mission. I liked those missions because they were ones where logic and cunning took precedence over superior firepower. I was hoping that this would be the same here.

I was wrong.

We're introduced to two people, Mike Bruski who works at the junkyard and Frederico Pappalardo who is the crooked union boss of the docks. They both imply that you'll do jobs for them outside of the main storyline but you don't. Go there and it's "Sorry Vito, I haven't got anything for you". They're just there to crush or export cars.

Then there is the hammerspace. Mafia worked because you didn't have hammerspace. You could hide a couple of pistols, and maybe a larger gun, but that was it. You were limited in what you could carry so you had to actually think. The other thing was that you had to be careful when you reloaded, reload too early and you'd lose the remaining ammo. No so in this game. You can keep your ammo and you can carry as many guns as you'd like. Also, why can't you shoot while driving? You could in the last game. Oh well.

The last thing that I miss is the police. Sure they're there but they are useless. Really, really, really useless. Sure Joe will tell me that I've missed a red light, but then again I never stopped at any red lights when I'd play GTA. The reason in that game is the same as this one. There is no incentive to. The police don't seem to care (unlike in Mafia), there are only three things that they care about, bar going about killing people. The first is speeding. As long as you don't kill anyone you can escape with a little fine. The second is stealing cars. The third is having weapons out in public. Very realistic there.

Oh well. It was a fun game to play the first time around. Too bad there isn't any real incentive to do it again.

What I've learned from The Chaser

Without Independents there'll be no competition

Given how important Independents will be in forming a new government I'd say that the army of David Szymczaks was right.

6 Degrees of Ken Doll

It's something from RationalWiki. They're calling it Hunt the Sausage. Basically you start at a random Conservapedia page and then try to find your way to one of the pet articles of the user "conservative". So you are trying to get to either their page on Evolution, Atheism or Homosexuality.

My first try I went from "Geometric progression" to "Interest" to "Interest rate" to "Usury" to "Homosexuality". According to Conservapedia usurers would end up in the same circle of hell as homosexuals.

I did make "Evolution" in three. Dave Rosenberg -> Fiscal conservatism -> Conservative -> Evolution. The link was that conservatives reject "junk science" such as evolution.

I'm playing the Ken Trio, but there are other kinds as well.

Factoid

At the start of the interval act of this years Eurovision you can see an audience member with an Australian flag.

"Psychic" Octopus

I'm worried. Anoctopus from the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen has picked Spain to beat Germany on Thursday morning (my time that is).

Now I consider myself someone with a skeptical mindset, but this is football and as I'm sure everyone knows you have to grasp as many straws as possible. That reasoning is why at the start of that game my mum will be singing the German national anthem as loudly as possible (even though she can't sing).

Although the BBC article does say that it only has a 70% success rate for the Euro 2008 and in the game between the two countries picked the wrong winner. Hopefully that will be the case here.

Well I should just be patient, what I want right now is to see the Dutch stomp the Uruguayans.

Westall conspiracy

If conspiracy theorists have taught me anything it's that there are no coincidences.

I saw an ad on TV for some show on Sci Fi about the Westall UFO, and what happens to be this week's Skeptoid? That's right, the Westall UFO.

Clearly this means that Brian Dunning is being paid by Sci Fi to get people to search for the UFO and learn about the show since there is no other explanation.
















Now to go cash my cheques from Sci Fi and Big Pseudoscience...

Responding to comments.

Well, I haven't responded to comments in a while (yes, this blog does get comments) so I figured I might as well do one now, since it's only four days until Uni starts and I can't get any sleep at all.

Both are from "truthers" and both come from the post Debunking 9/11.com is a PNAC front.

The first is from some guy called "John". His comment is technically spam, because it's just telling us about Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth:

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” -- Arthur Schopenhauer

Yes, clearly being ridiculed means that what you say must be true. Just like saying "the moon is made of purple dinosaurs" or "gold is really blue cheese". Clearly being ridiculed for holding such a view means that what you say is true, it's the first stage of being true. Now all I need is someone to beat the crap out of me for saying one of these stupid comments and I'll be one stage further then the "truth" movement.

"1,000 Architects & Engineers Call for New 9/11 Investigation "

More than 1,000 worldwide architects and engineers now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. After careful examination of the official explanation, along with the forensic data omitted from official reports, these professionals have concluded that a new independent investigation into these mysterious collapses is needed.

Yep. Because in todays world, one thousand people is a huge number, I mean it's only 0.0003288827559417241% (July 2008 - 304,059,724) of the US population, or 0.00001494314817189223% (2008 number - 6,692,030,277) of the population of the world or 0.0046785814541031% of the population of Australia (2008 - 21374000).

To be fair if they were in say, the Vatican then they would be a powerful force because there are more of them then people in the Vatican, but that's irrelevant.

Compare that 1000, with the ~1.5 million people who are fans of this pickle. But I guess that means that the architects are more truthful.

Either way it's just an argument from numbers.

Perhaps there should be a list of architects and engineers who don't think that there should be a new investigation?

The second is from "anonymous". It's very much a disjointed rant which I shall make more disjointed by responding to it thusly:

There is no need for pseudo-scientific ranting of vectors or Newton's Laws of Motion.

Wow, I never knew that I made a pseudo-scientific rant on the laws of motion. If someone can point out where I did, I'd appreciate it.

The JREF forum has debunked Newton countless times.

I wonder which Newton this is? Perhaps some clarification is in order.

He also has not taken the million-dollar challenge.

Maybe someone should tell him?

It is quite evident that 2+2=5 as shown on the JREF forum(a place to discuss pseudo-skepticism, denial, the obvious in an unfriendly and ridiculing way)This is the link to the debunking of the conservation of momentum...

(the link was to a pile of shit by the way)

As far as I'm aware 2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2

The towers fell the way they did because energy and momentum are never conserved.

Yes... because 9/11 showed the world that thermodynamics doesn't exist.

Newton was a delusional pseudo-scientist who refuses to debate on the forum.

Like the "million dollar challenge" quote I suggest someone tells him. If you happen to be in London I hear he hangs out in the Nave of Westminster Abbey. I believe he hangs out with people like Charles Darwin, William Thompson, 1^st Lord Kelvin, David Livingstone, Ernest Rutherford and Clement Attlee. Say hi to them from me if you happen to go.

Some kooks and lunatics claim that he is no longer living without providing the link to the source. Without the link, we cannot deny, ignore, and ridicule the evidence presented, which are the three steps in the JREF debunking process.

Yes, without those links those fools at the JREF will have to listen to us.

Let us put an end to these nonsensical discussions of the conservation of energy/momentum(both have been debunked, and shown to be religious beliefs) and move on to proving and disproving claims without the use of mathematics.

Brilliant, I hate math, I shall give you 0.001% of all my savings for suggesting this... err... how do you figure that out again?

Perhaps I should pray to the gods of conservation of energy and momentum, I'm sure they'll help me.

If any fellow pseudo-skeptics enjoyed this ranting, then please do not open this link… (link removed)

Yes, I did enjoy your rant, so I won't open your link. It's probably got something to do with the first comment or something.

So there you have it. I've responded to a couple of comments.

I'm not happy with Ubisoft (A Rant)

Well, it's official as it's ever going to get with them.

Assassin's Creed II will have Ubisofts fancy new DRM. Now not all DRM is bad, Steam works quite well in terms of DRM, but I don't think this one will.

Why?

Well, it seems that you need an active internet connection for a single player game. It's not single player as in MMORPGs like WoW, but single player as in say, solitare. You don't need an active internet connection to play solitare, neither do you need one for single player games like Tropico 3, Supreme Commander, or even any Steam game with a single player mode.

Now I wasn't happy with Ubisoft to begin with. They were announcing a simultaneous release of the game on PS3, XBox 360 and PC, but they decided to delay it. And what kind of notice did they give PC gamers? Well, a twitter message. That was all the warning that we got.

So, hopefully this "best quality game" will be fucking amazing, or their definition of "better quality game" is one that doesn't try to take advantage of the latest Direct X (opting to use 9 instead, because it's essentially a port of the 360 game, incidentally Assassin's Creed used Direct X 10), and completely retarded DRM.

Clearly they did this because that's what PC gamers want, a reason to pirate the game.

Now, I'm going to state for, the record as it were, that I'm not going to pirate it. I was given a pre-order as a late Christmas present/early birthday present (back when it was slated for a January release) so my copy will be a proper copy so Ubisoft will get their money.

They are essentially punishing honest PC gamers with this DRM. Even some developers agree.

Why don't I like it? Well because I have a crappy connection and there is no offline play.

None whatsoever.

At all.

Right now my connction is probably as fast as a dial up one. I don't know why, the ISP doesn't know why, I suspect that Telstra (who run the exchange, but aren't my ISP) knows why but won't tell anyone, but it's really slow. It also hangs on pages.

Now ACII will have cloud saving, like Modern Warfare 2, except not on Steam. Now both games save locally, so the cloud is only really there as a backup or the off chance you'll go somewhere else to play.

What do I do if the internet is slow with MW2? I go into Steam, click 'File', click 'Go offline' and then wait for it to restart in offline mode. I can now play my game, which I bought legally in a store. Same applies with Empire: Total War.

In fact the only game where this doesn't apply is Audiosurf, and that's because while I can play it offline, I like being able to submit my scores to the server and see how good I am compared to other people. (It's been a while since I last played it, properly working internet or not.)

I suspect that ACII might sell pretty well on PC, but it will also be one of the most downloaded, because people will want to play online, and the pirates will take advantage of this. I think that it will be like Spore. People bought the game, but didn't install the proper copy because of fears of SecuROM. EA still got their money, but they also lost money because of it.

Treating honest gamers like this is only going to end badly. I my opinion Ubisofts decision is just punishing us for not having, or wanting, a console. People are already speculating on their official forum that this is the very plan. Make more people pirates so they can claim "piracy is too bad on PC, we're not making games for them".

But it's not just DRM that's annoying me. Ever since the twitter "announcement" (note: twitter is not a proper way to announce something if you are a company) Ubisoft have been virtually silent on the PC version. No real reason why they delayed the PC version, no reason why they initially promised a simultaneous release several months beforehand, not even release dates. People are still wondering about ambiguous statements regarding the Black edition, apparently Asia doesn't have an official release date yet.

They tell us essentially nothing, and yet they still expect us to buy their product.

I honestly don't think this is a sound business model that they are adopting.

The Sumarians Were Indeed Confused

As the number 5 story of The Onion's "Top 10 stories of the last 4.5 billion years.

It must have been terribly confusing to hear God speak everything into existence when it was already there.

But while you laugh, remember that there are people out there who believe that God did create the universe at that time. And then laugh even more.