Category: Uncategorized

If you’re up on Saturday morning and want to rediscover your childhood (or help a child find theirs) you could do much worse than tune in to Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!, everything you ever wanted from a Saturday morning cartoon show. The best line in the opening credits is: “As I was exploring the outskirts of the city I discovered an abandoned super robot”. It’s called Jetix in the Channel 7 guide. Enjoy!

Oh, backtracking. Last night I ran into my high school formal partner at a cool warehouse rooftop party in West End. That’s why you go to parties in West End, isn’t it?

There’s a weird vibe around town this evening. People acting crazy, driving badly. You know. On Triple J’s Hack I hear some statistics that make me furious. So angry I feel compelled to swear repeatedly, so little kids shouldn’t read this and everyone else has been warned.

The federal government (pack of arseholes, especially that turd Vanstone) pulled an election-winning stunt last time around; they convinced 77% of Australia to turn away a boat full of refugees. They succeeded in this xenophobic exercise because:

  • They lied about the refugees throwing their babies overboard to be rescued (it didn’t happen).
  • They called (still call) the refugees “boat people”. Thank that red-haired moron for pushing that angle.
  • Australia has a healthy racist streak.

    But 77%. Jesus Fucking Christ.

    Anyway, the stats which made me see red relate to what they’ve done to turn the boat away. The arseholes set up offshore detention centres (i.e. prisons) to complement the many we’ve already got onshore. It’s how much money they’ve spent on this horrible exercise. They’ve just decided that 25 of the 36 potential refugees are actual refugees. Big surprise. It’s cost them *millions of dollars per refugee, per year* to find this out. They’re now finishing off a new refugee prison on Christmas Island that’s costing $330 million. That’s not counting running costs. With maybe just 50 potential refugees this last year, it’s hardly worth it.

    It’s simple maths. Just let them all in. Even including any more refugees who might come, we can afford to put them all on the dole for life if we can afford this bullshit. Plus we’d actually be helping people and offsetting the very low Australian birth rate that the arseholes are so concerned about.

    This is not difficult stuff. So far we’ve had racism in action, and not enough swearing.

    • A recent issue of New Scientist, not readable online, has some amazing predictions for the future from Ray Kurzweil. The basics: computing power by 2015(ish) will approach that of the human brain. By 2020(ish) that power will cost $1000. By 2030 it’ll be part of us and growing.

    On nanotechnology: if we can build efficient solar panels using nanotech, we can supply all the world’s energy needs by covering 0.03% of the surface with collectors. Goodbye power problems, oil, pollution, etc. We could also use nanotech as our own nutrition source, shut off the gut and eat for pleasure but never get fat. Genetic life extension means we never die of old age, instead growing our own new organs as the old ones deteriorate.

    Personally, I’m waiting for the replicator from Star Trek. Once someone builds a replicator that can replicate itself (and someone hacks the damned DRM off the thing) then all bets are off, capitalism dies and we all live happily ever after.

    I love the song “Do You Realise?” by The Flaming Lips: “do you realise/that everyone/you know/someday/will die”, but there’s just a chance that they could be wrong. I would love to see a singularity (event so influential after which all previous predictions are useless) in my lifetime. Having fun waiting for it, too.