Wednesday 28 May 2008

Friends

Even though I've seen most episodes at least three times, I still have to watch it when it's on.

Why? Why is this so?

It's like 25 minutes of audiovisual heroin.

Why are these people so watchable? I wish they were still releasing new ones.

Friday 23 May 2008

The Illusion of Democracy

If we wanted to change the world, would voting for the next President/Prime Minister/Premier be the way to do it?

I don't think so and I'll tell you why.

All the parties and opposition parties may well have different rationalisations for their policies but the final chapter in the book of politics will be written by the winner, from a position of great power and great wealth, and its title will be 'How to keep the gravy train running without the populace finding out about it.'

It seems that whoever you place in power by exercising your 'democratic right' to vote, they all basically do the same thing.

Remove your finances and freedom, almost imperceptibly, one bit at a time.

It's easy to be cynical, I know, but politics (and not the sham that is the American Presidential Race) does interest me and—a bit like a room with a living person, a dead person and a smoking gun—it's difficult to look at the situation without forming an opinion of it.

While I'm sure that politicians do have a very difficult job, it seems to me that their time must be spent at least as much suppressing the opposition as tending to the health of their societies.

I think Douglas Adams hit a nail (one of many) on the head with his philosophers vs Deep Thought argument. Imagine Deep Thought as democracy to its 'practitioners' and I'll share a moment of this wonderful monologue with you:

"
Everyone's going to have their own theories about what answer I'm eventually going to come up with, and who better to capitalize on that media market than you yourselves? So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and slagging each other off in the popular press, you can keep yourself on the gravy train for life. How does that sound?"

This monologue could apply to a number of institutions. Here, Deep Thought was placating the philosophers, but he could have been speaking to a priest, an economist, a football manager or even a politician.

The illusion is that, no matter who we vote for, they will end up doing everything they can to sustain 'democracy' because it's keeping them rich and the rest of us ignorant.

Friday 16 May 2008

Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?

I don't really know the answer to that one and I'll diet for a month if Morgan Spurlock ever finds out.

Entertaining it may well be and I might give it a look. I watched Supersize Me and (other than the movie seemingly owing its existence to an argument with his wife about his non-vegetarian diet) it was quite entertaining. I have no doubt that the hunt for bin Laden will be equally entertaining but I feel sure that he would garner more credibility with a Supersize Me 2.

I don't believe the hype of the news and take most of everything I hear with a large pinch of salt. The situation in the middle east is undoubtedly complicated and tense but news reports of action there are beginning to look like movie trailers.

That said, does anyone in this world seriously believe that the American Government are going to give money to the man to cross borders into dangerous territory or that hostile middle eastern regions will grant this enemy of their cause access to their homeland, with the singular purpose of finding out where the man at the centre of it all — Osama bin Laden, probably the most wanted man in the western hemisphere — lives and then just wrapping production and going home without a single shred of evidence or intelligence?

Maybe it's a double bluff.

But I doubt it.

Wednesday 14 May 2008

Promotion through Fear

How would you feel if Tesco's started marketing mobile phones by inducing fear into you of what may happen to you if you don't happen to own one?

I think it would be well below par for such an organisation.

Irresponsible. Outrageous. Damaging. Frowned upon. Arguably even downright unethical.

Any such advertising campaign would ensure a downturn in their sales, I'm sure, and deservedly so. No company should ever believe that marketing of that standard is something that — as a society — we should accept.

But don't forget to pay your TV licence.

Or else...

Tuesday 6 May 2008

HDR Images


Scotland Sky
Originally uploaded by motophiliac
Getting there on the HDR front. I did write a short while ago about HDR images the easy way with Photoshop and layers. It seems that there is actually an easier way with something called Photomatix but I prefer to do things the complicated, tweakable way.

This is my first blog post from flickr so it may look a little different.

Thursday 1 May 2008

Lollipop Cameras

While I can understand the idea behind putting miniature cameras into the 'lollipops' of Lollipop Ladies and Men across the nation, I think we have to be careful.

We're getting too used to our news services telling us that 'cameras can now talk' or that 'we are the most surveilled country in the world'.

This may or may not be conditioning, depending how paranoid you or your friends (are you sure they're really your friends?) are.

Regardless, the effect is that we are becoming a society complacent of the cloud of surveillance we find ourselves increasingly having to come to terms with.

There is a post at the bottom of a road near where I live. On top of it may be found a camera. Every month or so the camera is 'removed'. After a few weeks or so it is reinstalled. Ad nauseam.

The bottom line here is that, simply, society — at the point where it means the most — does not want a camera. How much more vocal can a society be?

And yet, here we are, welcoming the presence of cameras on lollipops.

I think we need to keep an eye on those who so want to keep an eye on us.