Category: News and Events

Tupac Pepper

He didn’t have an ‘H’ on his forehead. Dead giveaway.

I’d just like to point out that while the technology used to resurrect Tupac Shakur at Coachella over the weekend is impressive, it’s not a bloody hologram!

The company that makes it can call it a hologram all they like, but that doesn’t make it one. The technology to create 3d images out of light simply doesn’t exist outside of sci-fi movies. Hell, it may not even be possible. The thing that was stalking around the stage with Snoop Dog and Dr Dre was simply an advanced version of Pepper’s Ghost.

Don’t believe the hype people.

Sunday Miscellany

There’s a theory that says a new century doesn’t really start until something shocking happens that shakes people up and completely changes their view of the world. The 21st century for instance didn’t actually begin for the western world until September 11th 2001. Similarly, the western world’s 20th century began 100 years ago today – April 15th 1912 – when the Titanic sank below the waves, taking the Victorian belief in man’s triumph over nature with it.

I don’t know if the theory could be considered “right”, but it’s interesting to think about.

Everyone’s going to be talking Titanic today, so that’s all I’ll say on the subject.

Idiot clients aside, I had quite an interesting Friday. For a while we’ve been employing a programmer from Brazil and as of a few months back we’ve been sponsoring him for a permanent residency visa (or whatever it’s called). Last week it finally came through, and by way of thanks he took us all out for lunch to a Brazilian barbecue restaurant in Subiaco.

Brazilian barbecue is pretty awesome. You sit around the table and they continuously bring you giant skewers of meat. If you want what’s on the skewer you signal so by turning a coaster-like piece of cardboard to the green side, and they chop some off onto your plate. If you’re not interested in this particular skewer you turn the coaster to the red side. They also load down the table with salads, sauces and sides, and the sides and skewers just keep coming until you’re too bloated to move.

Particularly good was the chicken wrapped in bacon, the cheese bread, the deep fried banana and (of all things) the barbecued pineapple. The Guaraná Antarctica was also great – like Red Bull mixed with Passiona – I may have to to track down a supplier.

It was a great way to spend a couple of hours, although by the end of it we all just wanted to go home and sleep. If I did have one criticism it was that the beef was rather rare – call me a philistine but I’m of the man cook meat with fire school of cookery and prefer my food not to bleed all over the plate while I’m cutting it.

I shall attempt to arrange a return visit with my carnivorous friends as a matter of urgency.

Now (as a complete non-sequiter) back in 1999 when Dave Faulkner and Kim Salmon were choosing a name for their musical collaboration and the album produced thereof Google was barely in spark in Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s eyes. This may explain why they selected “Antenna” and “Installation”. Fast forward the the hectic teens of the 21st century and you try Googling information on “Antenna” and “Installation”. I can guarantee you won’t find anything concerning Australian music until about page fifty.

The reason I mention this is for years I’ve been trying to identify a song off that album. I knew the name “Ten Four”, and knew that it was by an Australian collaboration that called themselves something like “Aerial”, but had absolutely no luck tracking it down. It wasn’t until a few months back that I began an intensive series of Google searches to try and crack the mystery once and for all.

I eventually (obviously) did it, but it took several hours of typing in various combinations of keywords and reading through reams and reams of pages about Australian musical collaborations. Making things even more complicated was the fact that the song isn’t “Ten Four”, it’s “10-4”, which again makes things more complicated than they have to be.

But now I have it! The information that is. I don’t have the song because it doesn’t appear to online anywhere. It’s not on YouTube or any other video sharing site I’ve tried, and the iTunes store doesn’t even acknowledge that Antenna ever existed. I rather suspect I’ll have to track down a copy of Installation on eBay if I ever want to hear the song again.

Ah well, such is life.

Gotta go clean the bathroom now. That qualifies as “such is life” as well…

Nothing to See Here, Move Along

Most years I do something wild and wacky with the site for April Fool’s Day. This year I simply haven’t had the time. So, I’m afraid, there’s nothing to see here.

If you do want something wild and wacky however, can I recommend OMFGDOGS?

Oh, and Wikipedia is having it’s usual fun.

Charity Time

Vooks of vooks.net has a great idea.

Dick Smith Electronics are getting out of the games business (wait, hang-on, no they’re not apparently) and from Monday are selling off their remaining stock at ridiculous prices. Really ridiculous prices. Vooks suggests that if you’re taking advantage of their array of $1 and $5 games, buy a few extra and donate them to either Child’s Play, or to your local children’s hospital.

How about it folks?

So Long Monorail

Is there a chance the track could bend?

So, the news broke yesterday that New South Wales state government is going to shut down the Sydney Monorail. This is unsurprising – for reasons I’ll discuss below – but has stirred up some rather fierce debate, much of which is being played out in the comments sections of the major news sites.

The comments posted have generally been of three types, typified by the only slightly fictionalised examples below…

“About time! The monorail is a joke. It doesn’t go anywhere useful, it doesn’t connect with the rest of the city’s transport and no one except tourists ever uses it. It should have been shut down years ago!”
CBD Office Drone from Sydney

“This is a real shame! When I go to Sydney twice a year to buy sheep crutching ointment my kids love riding on the monorail! What am I going to do with them now? Save the Monorail!”
Country Kev from Coonnaboollabillybar

“Is there a chance the track could bend?”
Disco Stu from Disco Stu Likes Disco Music

My opinion? Shutting the monorail is sad, but makes sense.

The simple fact is that the monorail system is coming to the end of it’s useful life. It was built in 1988 in a burst of raw bicentennial enthusiasm to demonstrate to the world that Australia was a modern, vibrant country. As with most similar projects it looked cool, but was fairly useless, the entire circuit covering a mere 3.6 kilometres and linking the Darling Harbour redevelopment (another bicentennial project) to the Darling Harbour redevelopment. The rest of the stations were placed with no thought as to where people might actually like to go to, and totally failed to integrate with the rest of the city’s public transport. The fares have been ridiculously high ever since it opened – on a dollars per kilometre basis it costs more to ride the Sydney Monorail than to travel in a first class sleeper cabin on the Orient Express.  In other words it is, and always has been a massive white elephant.

Nonetheless it has been kept running – mostly as a tourist attraction – for the last 24 years via a sort of grudging civic pride. The rails have been maintained, more or less, and the six sets of carriages have slowly been cannibalised for parts, with only four now in service.

Now however the system has hit the wall. If the monorail is to be kept running it requires a complete overhaul – at the very least new carriages need to be purchased. The problem is that the system was built to a proprietary standard – only carriages and equipment from the original manufacturer will work – and, guess what? The original manufacturer no longer makes monorails. Result? You just can’t get the parts.

This leaves the government with three options…

1: Spend tens of millions of dollars buying new carriages and equipment from a new supplier, and overhauling the entire system to be able to use said new carriages and equipment.

2: Spend hundreds of millions (if not a few billion) doing the above, and expanding the network to link it properly into the public transport network and take people to places they actually might like to go.

3: Spend a few hundred thousand dollars to shut it down.

While option two would be fantastic, the only sensible one is three. Shut it down.

It’ll be sad to see it go, but the city will survive just fine without it.

It would be nice if they can keep a few of the pillars and a short section of track as a kind of memorial for urban history wonks such as myself though. Maybe I’ll write a letter or something…

Kony

Is Joseph Kony a monster who needs to be brought to justice? Yes.

Is it good that the central African conflict is getting some attention for once? Yes.

Is Kony responsible for everything that’s wrong with central Africa? No.

Will capturing Kony solve central Africa’s problems and turn everything to sweetness and light and happiness with unicorns and ice cream? Hell no.

Are parts of the Invisible Children video inaccurate, outdated and misleading? Hell yes.

Don’t imagine for a second that putting up a poster, liking something on Facebook or pinning blame on one man is going to ‘save’ the people of central Africa. Do some research into just how complex and fethed up the conflict/region is, hold off on buying that new smartphone, and then get back to me.

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