March 20, 2003
My tribe is not at war
As an Italian Australian living in the UK for the last five year, I feel totally and utterly disgusted. "We" are at war with Iraq? No. They are. We are being taken along for the ride.
When doubleplusgood values are being touted I feel justified being self-centered. My tribe, friends and family scattered around the world, is not at war. My tribe is not suffering hardship at the hands of a dictator. My tribe is not a victim of terrorist attacks. I reserve the right to be influenced and to constantly change my mind, but right now my feelings are clear. This "war on terrorism" is a disgrace, and a sham. History will judge the prime movers harshly.
As with Gulf War I, it's will be impossible not take side. Hence my absolute feelings of resentment. How do you stand by your convictions when children of friends are in combat forces in the region? How do you stay immune to the coverage when people, stories, and technology are what interest you? It's amazing what's supposedly happening. But don't tell me it's worth it. This is bullshit. Violent and destructive is hardwired in our genes. What's the enemy? How about 'Big Dick' syndrome.
One day, it would be nice to think, a conflict of this nature will be averted entirely by public opposition in advance. Till then, the naked Emperors prevail and I resent being told ad nauseum that they have clothes on. I can't see them.
Wouldn't it be great if people stopped petitioning /dev/null by signing vapourware online petitions. Think of what all those 30 second surges of idealism could do if aimed better. There is real online activism about (that isn't just spam) like Fax Your MP for the UK and Moveon.org for the US. Morebig London demonstrations for people to show their support in the flesh.
Of course beware if you see any humour in this. I'm not a fan of the guy but as Ali G mixed up 911 and 711 on US network television I LOL. Strong medicine.
March 17, 2003
Axis of X map
A cute little map to help keep track of Axis of Evil, Axis of vodka-exporters, Axis of whatever...
Axis Applet
March 15, 2003
Tremors in the force
Just got this email from a US ISP where till recently I had a co-located box. Sounds painful. Computer security is just boring geek stuff until your stuff that's affected. How embarassing.
"Good afternoon, and thank you for bringing the network outage to our attenion. <DELETED> was hit by a massive Distributed Denial of Service attack this morning, coming from several locations across the internet. The nature of this attack was such that it took several hours to remediate with the help of our upstream providers."
And to think Sadaam's national guard may have been playing Rez for years..
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
As if life isn't complicated enough, the World Health Organisation has announced Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a mystery illness killing people world-wide.
March 14, 2003
Circle Line Party II
What happens when Circle Line train carriages become a party venue for a night? It's on tonight for the curious. Circle Line Party Info
March 11, 2003
March 06, 2003
Panic attack
Helene Guldberg writes about Bjørn Lomborg whose book, The Skeptical Environmentalist has led to a campaign to discredit him and his research in risk adverse society. Apparently, maybe, the world is far less dangerous and doomed than we realise. "Proponents of today's risk-averse culture see nothing so dangerous as awkward questions."
Showreel in Quicktime 6
Finally got around to updating my showreel for Quicktime 6. MPEG-4 is the standard format used now and boy can you tell the difference.