In case you missed it, here's the clip from Channel 4's '10 O'Clock Live' in which Charlie Brooker assassinates 'Colonel' Gadaffi. Satirically speaking. More's the pity.
Foodie and grubby: not the same thing
1 week ago
Monday
Zen 705: Just take this dick extract and everything should be fine...
Eye-catching ingredient in this Austrian medicinal tea. Chef's special sauce anyone?
Zen 704: Things I learned while skiing
1. As if to prove we are not truly European, the British are the only ones to indulge in the ancient art of queueing.
2. The Dutch, far from being laid back, drug-smoking bohemians are in fact the rudest people in Europe. At least the ones who ski are.
3. In some parts of the Tirol, an ACDC car sticker the size of your rear window is a status symbol.
4. The only way to accurately report the weather in any given part of the Alps is to look up and then tell someone immediately what you saw. Predictions more than 2 or 3 minutes into the future are guaranteed to be wrong.
5. Being on a chairlift during a white-out perfectly represents the assent to heaven in some theologies.
6. It is possible to spend a huge amount on ski gear and still look like trailer trash.
7. There is nothing funnier on Earth than a 30-schoolkid multiple pile-up on a mogul run. Especially if those schoolkids happen to be French.
8. The schnitzel is a wild and ferocious beast.
9. Cee Lo's 'Fuck You' is considered suitable family fare and can be played at ear-splitting volume next to the ski crèche.
10. The same goes for an Austrian song about an ugly girl who's alright from behind and likes threesomes. I kid you not.
11. Anything can be skied if you hit it fast enough and with a sufficient amount of mindless overconfidence. This includes black mogul runs full of prone French schoolkids.
12. Whatever medical advice you receive, you are always fit to ski.
2. The Dutch, far from being laid back, drug-smoking bohemians are in fact the rudest people in Europe. At least the ones who ski are.
3. In some parts of the Tirol, an ACDC car sticker the size of your rear window is a status symbol.
4. The only way to accurately report the weather in any given part of the Alps is to look up and then tell someone immediately what you saw. Predictions more than 2 or 3 minutes into the future are guaranteed to be wrong.
5. Being on a chairlift during a white-out perfectly represents the assent to heaven in some theologies.
6. It is possible to spend a huge amount on ski gear and still look like trailer trash.
7. There is nothing funnier on Earth than a 30-schoolkid multiple pile-up on a mogul run. Especially if those schoolkids happen to be French.
8. The schnitzel is a wild and ferocious beast.
9. Cee Lo's 'Fuck You' is considered suitable family fare and can be played at ear-splitting volume next to the ski crèche.
10. The same goes for an Austrian song about an ugly girl who's alright from behind and likes threesomes. I kid you not.
11. Anything can be skied if you hit it fast enough and with a sufficient amount of mindless overconfidence. This includes black mogul runs full of prone French schoolkids.
12. Whatever medical advice you receive, you are always fit to ski.
Tuesday
Zen 703: Otter Zen is on holiday
Hi all - will be (mostly) incommunicado for the next few days. I'm going on an Ayurvedic retreat to learn how to live healthily as a vegan. My hemp robes are packed and I'm hoping to pick up some amazing mung bean recipes.
It's a great networking opportunity. Apparently, if you don't leave with an address book full of aura readers, reiki healers, astrologers and homeopathic practitioners, they'll find your fifth chakra for free. And without using their hands.
Boomshanka people. See you when Venus is in the third house.
It's a great networking opportunity. Apparently, if you don't leave with an address book full of aura readers, reiki healers, astrologers and homeopathic practitioners, they'll find your fifth chakra for free. And without using their hands.
Boomshanka people. See you when Venus is in the third house.
Zen 702: In Communist China, children molest Michael Jackson...
The Interwebs are a mass of little extended in-jokes (like calling it the Interwebs - ha ha ha, I am so droll!). You've been rickrolled, trolololled and in all probability have seen Hitler ranting about everything from Justin Beiber to Ryan Air by way of the vuvuzela.
But it's not just restricted to clever English-speaking types. The Chinese, for example, have their own thing going on reworking the kitschy communist masterpiece that is the 1976 full Technicolor Long March Song Cycle. These dudes have been artistically recut to perform a host of alternative songs by the likes of Lady GaGa, Queen and the Baha Men.
Here they are doing Wacko's Beat It (via Yute the Beaut). In Communist China, children molest Michael Jackson...*
* This is a riff on the popular 'in Soviet Russia' gag/meme. I can't be arsed to explain it and no doubt you don't really care. If you do, then a) you should probably get out more; and b) click here.
But it's not just restricted to clever English-speaking types. The Chinese, for example, have their own thing going on reworking the kitschy communist masterpiece that is the 1976 full Technicolor Long March Song Cycle. These dudes have been artistically recut to perform a host of alternative songs by the likes of Lady GaGa, Queen and the Baha Men.
Here they are doing Wacko's Beat It (via Yute the Beaut). In Communist China, children molest Michael Jackson...*
* This is a riff on the popular 'in Soviet Russia' gag/meme. I can't be arsed to explain it and no doubt you don't really care. If you do, then a) you should probably get out more; and b) click here.
Zen 701: The simple joy of being a dog, as expressed by Boz
I defy you to look at this picture and not crack a smile. You didn't? Jesus, you people are savages.
Although to be fair, it looks a lot better on my iPhone. Ah hell, just take my word for it. She's the best dog in the world.
Although to be fair, it looks a lot better on my iPhone. Ah hell, just take my word for it. She's the best dog in the world.
Zen 700: Who the hell is that Fire who?
 |
| The horror. The horror... |
Happily, Tumblr has recorded the outpourings for posterity. You can get the full, unedited whining here: Who is Arcade Fire? [LINK].
Or slide on over to YouChoob and check out some of the stuff from their Grammy award winning album 'The Suburbs'.
Monday
Friday
Zen 698: Brand managing the Nazis
Fascinating piece on the New Design Observer blog. Journo Steve Heller has finally tracked down the semi-mythical 'graphics standard manual' for the National Socialist German Workers Party a.k.a. the Nazis.
Nestling within the pages of the 'Organisationsbuch der NSDAP' - a handbook "detailing the organizational principles and mechanics of building the Nazi movement" - is a 70-page chapter explaining just what you could and couldn't do with the badges, uniforms, banners, flags, armbands and other symbols of the Hitler state.
Says Heller: " The book 'over-explains the obvious' and leaves no Nazi Party organization question, regardless of how minute, unanswered. "
Heller also gives a really interesting whistlestop tour through the design Who's Who of the Third Reich, explaining who managed all the key elements, from monumental architecture (Albert Speer) to the swastika itself (Dr Robert Ley).
I doubt the ODN is going to be available in paperback on Amazon anytime soon, but this is a genuinely insightful and intriguing piece of cultural history, even if it is for and about bastards.
Article: The Master Race's Graphic Masterpiece [LINK]
 |
| Not camp at all. Really. Not a hint of campness. |
Says Heller: " The book 'over-explains the obvious' and leaves no Nazi Party organization question, regardless of how minute, unanswered. "
Heller also gives a really interesting whistlestop tour through the design Who's Who of the Third Reich, explaining who managed all the key elements, from monumental architecture (Albert Speer) to the swastika itself (Dr Robert Ley).
I doubt the ODN is going to be available in paperback on Amazon anytime soon, but this is a genuinely insightful and intriguing piece of cultural history, even if it is for and about bastards.
Article: The Master Race's Graphic Masterpiece [LINK]
Zen 697: Uber cute, hi-def, slow-mo chipmunk
Check out this furry little blighter. Yes, he's unbelievably adorable, but spare a thought for the fact that moments after this video was shot, he was eaten, whole, by an angry Rottweiler.
I kid. He's fine. Except he died horribly covered in Bonio and drool. But seriously, he didn't. He retired to a little chipmunk house in the hills and had lots of little adorable cute baby chipmunks with his adorable cute chipmunk wife. Well, he would have done if his skull hadn't been ruthlessly crushed by the huge slavering jaws of a rabid canine. He didn't! Honestly! But he did... etc, etc.
I kid. He's fine. Except he died horribly covered in Bonio and drool. But seriously, he didn't. He retired to a little chipmunk house in the hills and had lots of little adorable cute baby chipmunks with his adorable cute chipmunk wife. Well, he would have done if his skull hadn't been ruthlessly crushed by the huge slavering jaws of a rabid canine. He didn't! Honestly! But he did... etc, etc.
Zen 696: I wanna steal your heart ... and eat your brains
It's a zombie love song. For Valentine's Day.
"When I chase you through the graveyard, it feels like foreplay..."
Sweet.
"When I chase you through the graveyard, it feels like foreplay..."
Sweet.
Thursday
Zen 695: Masterchef goes EPIC
The world's finest reality TV format (OK, that's a pretty short shortlist, I accept) is back and it's moved to BBC One. There's a new format, new set and new mega-spangly no-holds-barred budget, but at the end of the day John Torrode will still ingest a forkful of food like an iguana eating a frog and Greg Wallace will still approach every dessert like he wants to sire the next generation of mini-Wallaces from it in some unholy union between man and sugary pudding.
Got to love it. Maestro, testosterone please...
Got to love it. Maestro, testosterone please...
Zen 694: Why we (probably) shouldn't fear the rise and rise of China
China is on the up and up. The Chinese economy will, in the not so very distant future, be the world's largest. The shift from rural to urban living, a necessary precursor for the leap to full industrialisation, constitutes the most massive human migration in history.
The goverment has just announced the creation of a colossal commercial 'megacity' bigger than Wales. Chinese traders are kicking over the traces in all corners of the planet, and the military is exerting China's claim to regional superpower status with a new batch of toys that include an aircraft carrier and a stealth bomber to match the best even the Americans can offer.
And that's just for starters.
Analysts the world over are quite persuasively predicting a Chinese century. Some of them even think that Top Dog China might be aggressively expansionist, paving the way for a new Cold - or possibly even hot - War.
All this may indeed come to pass, but chill your boots a second. There are even better reasons to believe China will be big but not dominant. They aren't, by any means, out of the woods yet.
They have massive problems.
Gross income inequality in the communist paradise has China ranked globally 93rd for per capita income, so while there are many super rich Chinese, there are many, many more who are grindingly poor with no prospect of their circumstances ever improving.
This is because corruption is completely out of control (just ask Li Gang). Add to that the fabulously dimwitted agricultural policies that have exposed China to rampant desertification, the lack of rights and freedoms, chronic, untempered pollution and endemic social injustice and you have plenty of factors that might put the brakes on China's runaway train.
But history tells us that plenty of successful developed nations experienced some or all if these problems on the way up.
What makes China unique is the demographic timebomb of its one-child policy. By 2050, nearly 40% of the Chinese population will be over 65. Not only that, but there's a radical male skew because most favoured a single boy child over a girl.
Another thing history tells us is that significantly geriatric countries don't go to war, even those run by rich, lonely old men.
The goverment has just announced the creation of a colossal commercial 'megacity' bigger than Wales. Chinese traders are kicking over the traces in all corners of the planet, and the military is exerting China's claim to regional superpower status with a new batch of toys that include an aircraft carrier and a stealth bomber to match the best even the Americans can offer.
And that's just for starters.
Analysts the world over are quite persuasively predicting a Chinese century. Some of them even think that Top Dog China might be aggressively expansionist, paving the way for a new Cold - or possibly even hot - War.
All this may indeed come to pass, but chill your boots a second. There are even better reasons to believe China will be big but not dominant. They aren't, by any means, out of the woods yet.
They have massive problems.
Gross income inequality in the communist paradise has China ranked globally 93rd for per capita income, so while there are many super rich Chinese, there are many, many more who are grindingly poor with no prospect of their circumstances ever improving.
This is because corruption is completely out of control (just ask Li Gang). Add to that the fabulously dimwitted agricultural policies that have exposed China to rampant desertification, the lack of rights and freedoms, chronic, untempered pollution and endemic social injustice and you have plenty of factors that might put the brakes on China's runaway train.
But history tells us that plenty of successful developed nations experienced some or all if these problems on the way up.
What makes China unique is the demographic timebomb of its one-child policy. By 2050, nearly 40% of the Chinese population will be over 65. Not only that, but there's a radical male skew because most favoured a single boy child over a girl.
Another thing history tells us is that significantly geriatric countries don't go to war, even those run by rich, lonely old men.
Wednesday
Zen 693: Is organised crime the world's biggest social network? Errr, no.
But Wired (the US version of which may be the only good reason left to buy a magazine) has produced a pretty (but also pretty useless) infographic to try and convince us that it is.
I draw your attention to this for the sole reason of pointing out that the current wild enthusiasm for infographics is, for the most part, a triumph of style over substance. The Wired 'Crime, Organised' feature is a near-perfect illustration of my point.
The splash page is a slick, colour-coded world map bestrewn (is that even a word?) with arrows indicating the origin, type and destination of global criminal activity. It's quite diverting to look at, but almost totally unrevealing. As one commenter put it: "Pretty vague, may as well have just drawn it in crayons and scribbled CRIME HAPPEN HERE."
Then you click through to various breakdowns by type of crime, with a whole series of radically over-egged schematics that offer you nothing more insightful than a bog-standard bar graph and are slightly more difficult to read.
Great infographics should be beautiful to look at, yes. But they should also multiply the impact of the data in some way.
If I'm getting an invitation, lubed up with the words 'organised crime', 'social network' and 'infographic', I'm expecting gloriously pretty pictures than stun me by revealing that the Cosa Nostra has more members than MySpace and that for every 'poke', somewhere in the world there's a 'whack'. I want a diagram comparing the social consequences of 'unfriending' Facebook style versus 'unfriending' Colombian cartel style. I want to know if the best route up the corporate greasy pole is Linked In or made man.
As it is, we have a glut of design porn chasing a scarcity of interesting data. Must try harder.
 |
| Click on the image to go to the Wired article. |
The splash page is a slick, colour-coded world map bestrewn (is that even a word?) with arrows indicating the origin, type and destination of global criminal activity. It's quite diverting to look at, but almost totally unrevealing. As one commenter put it: "Pretty vague, may as well have just drawn it in crayons and scribbled CRIME HAPPEN HERE."
Then you click through to various breakdowns by type of crime, with a whole series of radically over-egged schematics that offer you nothing more insightful than a bog-standard bar graph and are slightly more difficult to read.
Great infographics should be beautiful to look at, yes. But they should also multiply the impact of the data in some way.
If I'm getting an invitation, lubed up with the words 'organised crime', 'social network' and 'infographic', I'm expecting gloriously pretty pictures than stun me by revealing that the Cosa Nostra has more members than MySpace and that for every 'poke', somewhere in the world there's a 'whack'. I want a diagram comparing the social consequences of 'unfriending' Facebook style versus 'unfriending' Colombian cartel style. I want to know if the best route up the corporate greasy pole is Linked In or made man.
As it is, we have a glut of design porn chasing a scarcity of interesting data. Must try harder.
Zen 692: Well held, sir - man catches boy as he falls off escalator
You have to love YouChoob. Comment below this video: "Good job this was Turkey and not America, or that kid would have weighed 20 stone."
Zen 691: X-rays of lots of people who didn't know they were dead
While having a look at images to go with the previous post, I found this photogallery:
Caution - NSFL!!! (not suitable for lunch)
The X Factor: Amazing x-rays [LINK]
Here's a little sneak peak. This guy fell on his drill while working up a ladder.
Caution - NSFL!!! (not suitable for lunch)
The X Factor: Amazing x-rays [LINK]
Here's a little sneak peak. This guy fell on his drill while working up a ladder.
Zen 690: Some people just don't know when they're dead
I think everyone is pretty amazed that Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords survived being shot through the head, and was actually up and walking about inside two weeks.
Some people truly don't know when they're dead. But if you think Gabrielle is pretty hardcore, wait until you get a load of Jim Maguire.
Jim was with the Manchester Regiment in 1916, fighting to relieve Kut in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). As he went to the aid of a wounded comrade, he was shot in the back of the head. His company, by now in full retreat, left him for dead.
To look at him, you could understand why they might have made that assumption. The bullet entered the back of his skull behind his left ear and exited through his left eye. Certainly, the local tribesmen who tried to steal his boots thought he was a goner. That is until he tried to fight them off, whereupon they bayoneted him three times.
Unperturbed and hearing voices, Jim subsequently staggered into an camp full of Turks and Germans and was made a prisoner of war. He was ferried, untreated, on a cart to Baghdad where nuns cared for him using nothing but iodine and recycled bandages.
He returned to Britain in a postwar prisoner exchange and lived for another sixty years, dying at the age of 93 - several years after most of the people who had attended his requiem mass back in Manchester in 1916.
Puts that movie about the geezer who cut off his own arm into a bit of context doesn't it?
 |
| Giffords: too tough |
Jim was with the Manchester Regiment in 1916, fighting to relieve Kut in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). As he went to the aid of a wounded comrade, he was shot in the back of the head. His company, by now in full retreat, left him for dead.
To look at him, you could understand why they might have made that assumption. The bullet entered the back of his skull behind his left ear and exited through his left eye. Certainly, the local tribesmen who tried to steal his boots thought he was a goner. That is until he tried to fight them off, whereupon they bayoneted him three times.
Unperturbed and hearing voices, Jim subsequently staggered into an camp full of Turks and Germans and was made a prisoner of war. He was ferried, untreated, on a cart to Baghdad where nuns cared for him using nothing but iodine and recycled bandages.
He returned to Britain in a postwar prisoner exchange and lived for another sixty years, dying at the age of 93 - several years after most of the people who had attended his requiem mass back in Manchester in 1916.
Puts that movie about the geezer who cut off his own arm into a bit of context doesn't it?
Tuesday
Zen 689: The Streisand Effect - what it is and how to avoid it
Ha ha ha! Stupid celebrities being caught out by their own stupidness!!! As Danny Devito's character says in some movie: "Lawyers are like nuclear weapons. You have to have them, but as soon as you use them, they fuck everything up."
Zen 688: Genghis Khan is apparently a green hero - a savagely murderous bastard but a green hero nonetheless
New research suggests that the cataclysmic scale of Genghis Khan's conquest of Asia and Eastern Europe may actually have had a cooling effect on the world's climate.
The theory goes that Genghis and his ancestors killed so many people (40 million by some estimates) during their two centuries of expansion that they returned vast swathes of cultivated land back to forest. Enough, in fact, to absorb an entire year's worth of 21st century car emissions, or 700 million tons of carbon.
Bully for Genghis.
Researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology compiled a model that looked at land cover from 800AD. They theorised that certain 'megadeath' events like plagues and wars might reveal a change in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
"It's a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era. Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth‘s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture," says Julia Pongratz, lead author.
This has led to much hilarity in the press, with Genghis being trumpeted as a 'green hero'. I don't know about you, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of anyone who murders huge numbers of people being hailed as a hero, even if he does inadvertently cause lovely, leafy, non-car-driving trees to appear in their place.
How about Hitler? He must have been a green hero. He slaughtered loads, double-quick too. Or is he disqualified on the grounds that he deliberately burned lots of the people he murdered on an industrial scale, thereby contributing their CO2 directly to the atmosphere? Seems so. Tut tut.
How about Stalin? He did a good job, starving and purging a whopping 70 million to death. Surely he's a green hero? Ah, no. Afraid not. You see he rapidly industrialised the Soviet Union with his series of Five Year Plans, so his carbon footprint is unfortunately very large indeed. Shame.
Pol Pot? Only killed two million. Small beer really. Must try harder.
Ooooh, how about Mao Zedong? He offed at least 45 million during the Great Leap Forward alone. He's surely got to be a green hero? Nope. Mao led one of the biggest programmes of deforestation ever carried out, so for that reason he's a bit of a bastard. Plus, there are more Chinese than ever these days, so he can't really be hailed as a success story, now can he?
There is a fundamental misanthropy at the heart of the green/environmental movement. It posits that people are the problem, so fewer people must be the solution. Those 'problem' people are usually spoken about in the abstract, rather than the personal. People you see in documentaries, not people you invite round for dinner.
History may teach us that fewer people equals more trees, but it also teaches us that any ideology that sees other human beings as a 'problem' that needs a 'solution' is almost certainly best left well alone.
 |
| Mao: Underachiever |
Bully for Genghis.
Researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology and the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology compiled a model that looked at land cover from 800AD. They theorised that certain 'megadeath' events like plagues and wars might reveal a change in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
"It's a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era. Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth‘s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture," says Julia Pongratz, lead author.
This has led to much hilarity in the press, with Genghis being trumpeted as a 'green hero'. I don't know about you, but I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of anyone who murders huge numbers of people being hailed as a hero, even if he does inadvertently cause lovely, leafy, non-car-driving trees to appear in their place.
How about Hitler? He must have been a green hero. He slaughtered loads, double-quick too. Or is he disqualified on the grounds that he deliberately burned lots of the people he murdered on an industrial scale, thereby contributing their CO2 directly to the atmosphere? Seems so. Tut tut.
How about Stalin? He did a good job, starving and purging a whopping 70 million to death. Surely he's a green hero? Ah, no. Afraid not. You see he rapidly industrialised the Soviet Union with his series of Five Year Plans, so his carbon footprint is unfortunately very large indeed. Shame.
Pol Pot? Only killed two million. Small beer really. Must try harder.
Ooooh, how about Mao Zedong? He offed at least 45 million during the Great Leap Forward alone. He's surely got to be a green hero? Nope. Mao led one of the biggest programmes of deforestation ever carried out, so for that reason he's a bit of a bastard. Plus, there are more Chinese than ever these days, so he can't really be hailed as a success story, now can he?
There is a fundamental misanthropy at the heart of the green/environmental movement. It posits that people are the problem, so fewer people must be the solution. Those 'problem' people are usually spoken about in the abstract, rather than the personal. People you see in documentaries, not people you invite round for dinner.
History may teach us that fewer people equals more trees, but it also teaches us that any ideology that sees other human beings as a 'problem' that needs a 'solution' is almost certainly best left well alone.
Zen 687: Stay off the thin ice!!! ... OK then, don't ...
Got to make your own fun up in that part of the world.
Monday
Zen 685: 'My father is Li Gang'
This is the unlikely catchphrase currently sweeping China. It's become shorthand for the corrosive arrogance and corruption endemic in the country and the lad who first uttered it - none other than Li Gang's son Li Qiming - has just gone to jail in a victory for community justice and the little guy.
Li Qiming was drunk behind the wheel of his car when he lost control, hitting two female students, killing one and severely injuring the other. As he tried to flee, he was cornered by an angry crowd, whereupon he uttered the now immortal phrase: "Go ahead, sue me. My father is Li Gang."
Gang Senior is the local deputy chief of police, and he has raised a little shit for a son. Still, six years in a Chinese prison should give him pause for reflection.
Li Qiming was drunk behind the wheel of his car when he lost control, hitting two female students, killing one and severely injuring the other. As he tried to flee, he was cornered by an angry crowd, whereupon he uttered the now immortal phrase: "Go ahead, sue me. My father is Li Gang."
Gang Senior is the local deputy chief of police, and he has raised a little shit for a son. Still, six years in a Chinese prison should give him pause for reflection.
Friday
Zen 684: Everything is a remix
Two brilliantly edited, extensively researched mini-docs about remixing, and how all-pervasive it has become. I'm not sure Kirby Ferguson is saying anything particularly insightful or groundbreaking here, but the detailed analysis and beautifully cut side-by-side comparisons reveal the extent to which the major cultural influencers of our time, such as Led Zeppelin and George Lucas, have themselves been influenced.
Parts 1 and 2 embedded here. Stay tuned for Part 3.
Everything is a Remix from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Parts 1 and 2 embedded here. Stay tuned for Part 3.
Everything is a Remix from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.
Zen 683: What more could you want from a Friday afernoon than footage of a fox licking a window?
Like the man says, it's a fox licking a window. Why? I don't know. It's one of the ineffable mysteries of the universe.
Zen 682: The Superbowl, as directed by Tarantino, Lynch, Herzog et al
This is quite a classy spoof and a lot cleverer than it at first appears. Weirdly, it starts with the weakest of the batch (presumably because everyone has heard of Tarantino) but it's worth sticking with it for the Jean-Luc Goddard riff alone. I'll never look on Martin Sheen in the same light again.
Thursday
Zen 681: The flashing toothbrush - usability excellence in action
It's usually the devil's own job to get Thing One (6) and Thing Two (4) to clean their teeth for anything like the regulation length of time.
They usually stand there, gobs rammed full of toothpaste and brush, saying "Gan I thpit?" after about 20 seconds.
Not now. Oh no.
Not now they have toothbrushes that flash brightly for the recommended duration. You get full and furious brushing throughout. It looks even cooler when you switch the lights off so they can see their own skulls glowing.
In fact, they'll quite often set the brush off again immediately. They call it "doing another lap".
As a simple usability solution to an age old problem, I salute the ingenious creatives who came up with it. More than you can say those who thought of the name.
Twinklers. I ask you.
They usually stand there, gobs rammed full of toothpaste and brush, saying "Gan I thpit?" after about 20 seconds.
Not now. Oh no.
Not now they have toothbrushes that flash brightly for the recommended duration. You get full and furious brushing throughout. It looks even cooler when you switch the lights off so they can see their own skulls glowing.
In fact, they'll quite often set the brush off again immediately. They call it "doing another lap".
As a simple usability solution to an age old problem, I salute the ingenious creatives who came up with it. More than you can say those who thought of the name.
Twinklers. I ask you.
Zen 680: Is the iPhone prejudiced? Or does it now do word association?
In writing the previous post, I typed the word 'jihadis' into my iPhone. The alternative spelling the iPhone offered me was 'hijacks'.
It should be noted here that in Islam, jihad is a complex concept that has arguably been hijacked (see what I did there) by the lunatic fringe. A jihad is a struggle (no Mein Kampf jokes please) or something you strive towards. There are many kinds of jihad, only one of which actually involves violence.
Jihad is the duty of all Muslims, which is not to say that all Muslims have a duty to take up arms. Most jihad is an internal or intellectual struggle that finds parallels in other faiths. The term 'jihadis' as a convenient shorthand for 'bigoted nutjob wearing a bomb belt' is a recent development used extensively in the American media. It's technically incorrect. In Britain we tend to call them 'militants', 'extremists' or 'evil bastards'.
In researching this post, I found a couple of really useful Islamic websites about Islam. They seemed pretty normal, up to the point where you hit the casual anti-Semitism. And mysogyny. And homophobia. Other than that, completely normal.
Sort it out chaps. It's not clever.
 |
| For anyone who thought irony was unIslamic |
Jihad is the duty of all Muslims, which is not to say that all Muslims have a duty to take up arms. Most jihad is an internal or intellectual struggle that finds parallels in other faiths. The term 'jihadis' as a convenient shorthand for 'bigoted nutjob wearing a bomb belt' is a recent development used extensively in the American media. It's technically incorrect. In Britain we tend to call them 'militants', 'extremists' or 'evil bastards'.
In researching this post, I found a couple of really useful Islamic websites about Islam. They seemed pretty normal, up to the point where you hit the casual anti-Semitism. And mysogyny. And homophobia. Other than that, completely normal.
Sort it out chaps. It's not clever.
Zen 679: Jihadi 'media whores' rendered irrelevant by wave of pro-democracy movements sweeping Muslim world
For a long time, the dominant voice of Islam for many people not of that faith has been that of the ignorant, medieval, bigoted variety, espousing death and suffering for everything that doesn't fit their cold, fascistic view of the world, itself framed by a very narrow and selective reading of the Koran.
Happily, the brewing revolutions from Tunis to Damascus, via Cairo have created a rather splendid new and popular voice that wants an end to dictatorships and democratic freedom for all.
Now it's fair to say that the jihadis despise democracy and the idea of basic and fundamental freedoms. They're much more interested in general intolerance, bombing civilians, stoning defenceless housewives, amputating limbs and the like.
The one thing the pro-democracy crowd and the jihadis agree on is that they want the dictators deposed, so the jihadis have swallowed hard and jumped on the bandwagon, claiming the people's cause as their own and aligning themselves with a movement they would ultimately seek to crush.
“These guys are consummate media whores,” says Brian Fishman, a Counterterrorism Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. “They’re looking to do what media whores do everywhere, which is to be opportunistic.”
(Quote above taken from great article in Wired: http://m.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/jihadi-media-whores-piggybacking-on-egypt-unrest/)
Unhappily, some Very Stupid media outlets (don't worry Fox, I won't name and shame) have taken the chance to depict the outbreak of revolutionary spirit as an Al Qaeda takeover, when it's anything but.
If anything, we're seeing the start of a movement that will make the jihadis utterly irrelevant in a way that bombing them to hell and back could never hope to achieve.
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| Nice work ladies. That about says it all. |
Now it's fair to say that the jihadis despise democracy and the idea of basic and fundamental freedoms. They're much more interested in general intolerance, bombing civilians, stoning defenceless housewives, amputating limbs and the like.
The one thing the pro-democracy crowd and the jihadis agree on is that they want the dictators deposed, so the jihadis have swallowed hard and jumped on the bandwagon, claiming the people's cause as their own and aligning themselves with a movement they would ultimately seek to crush.
“These guys are consummate media whores,” says Brian Fishman, a Counterterrorism Research Fellow at the New America Foundation. “They’re looking to do what media whores do everywhere, which is to be opportunistic.”
(Quote above taken from great article in Wired: http://m.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/jihadi-media-whores-piggybacking-on-egypt-unrest/)
Unhappily, some Very Stupid media outlets (don't worry Fox, I won't name and shame) have taken the chance to depict the outbreak of revolutionary spirit as an Al Qaeda takeover, when it's anything but.
If anything, we're seeing the start of a movement that will make the jihadis utterly irrelevant in a way that bombing them to hell and back could never hope to achieve.
Wednesday
Zen 678: I love the smell of adulation in the morning
'Kim Jong Phil' is a collection of 12 paintings and bronzes in which the artist Phil Toledano has reimagined classics of the 'dictator art' genre with himself as the dictator.
Because, says Phil, being an artist is just like being a dictator.
"Just like a dictator, I must live in a closed loop of self-delusion. A place where my words and ideas always ring true. A gilded daydream of grandiosity. There can be no room for doubt. I must be convinced that I have something vital to say. I must believe that the world is waiting in keen anticipation to hear my message."
I'm not sure he's being entirely serious, but it's a cracking wheeze (Gromit).
Kim Jong Phil gallery [link]
Because, says Phil, being an artist is just like being a dictator.
"Just like a dictator, I must live in a closed loop of self-delusion. A place where my words and ideas always ring true. A gilded daydream of grandiosity. There can be no room for doubt. I must be convinced that I have something vital to say. I must believe that the world is waiting in keen anticipation to hear my message."
I'm not sure he's being entirely serious, but it's a cracking wheeze (Gromit).
Kim Jong Phil gallery [link]
Zen 677: African Union covers itself in glory yet again by choosing 'worst dictator' as president
You might have thought the African Union had reached its lowest ebb with the choice of Libya's full on nut-job leader Muammar Gaddafi for this largely ceremonial role back in 2009.
But no. They've gone one better.
The latest man chosen to represent Africa is Teodoro Obiang Nguema, life president of Equatorial Guinea and widely held to run one of the "most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic states in the world."
There's no need to rehearse the full litany of horrors here, but needless to say he's really filled his boots when it comes to man's inhumanity to man.
A flavour of his regime can be gleaned from the 2003 radio announcement he made to 'his' people which stated that he is a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell."
His nation is ranked 168th out of 180 for corruption. Despite the discovery of oil making the country one of the richest in Africa, a third of the population has no running water. Obiang himself is rumoured to be a cannibal, although to be fair to the horrific bastard this is a common scare tactic among the Fang people of Africa and probably isn't true.
So three cheers for the AU. What a splendid job. Africa really doesn't deserve you.
But no. They've gone one better.
 |
| Obiang: Evil Nazi prick |
The latest man chosen to represent Africa is Teodoro Obiang Nguema, life president of Equatorial Guinea and widely held to run one of the "most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic states in the world."
There's no need to rehearse the full litany of horrors here, but needless to say he's really filled his boots when it comes to man's inhumanity to man.
A flavour of his regime can be gleaned from the 2003 radio announcement he made to 'his' people which stated that he is a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell."
His nation is ranked 168th out of 180 for corruption. Despite the discovery of oil making the country one of the richest in Africa, a third of the population has no running water. Obiang himself is rumoured to be a cannibal, although to be fair to the horrific bastard this is a common scare tactic among the Fang people of Africa and probably isn't true.
So three cheers for the AU. What a splendid job. Africa really doesn't deserve you.
Zen 676: Microsoft's Bing search engine caught red-handed copying Google results
A while back, Google became suspicious that Microsoft's new-kid-on-the-block search engine Bing was somehow 'borrowing' their results and including them as its own.
So they set a trap, creating bogus results for meaningless words, such as 'hrybbprqag' which returned a real result about a type of furniture.
Sure enough, the same results soon cropped up on Bing. Being Google, they repeated the experiment a few times to be absolutely sure.
As Google fellow Amut Singhal put it: "... some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation."
The brilliant thing is that Google allowed Microsoft the opportunity to fess up before revealing their little trap. Microsoft denied any wrongdoing and were subsequently exposed in this article: Microsoft's Bing uses Google search results and denies it
Whatever happens next, it's bound to be entertaining. After all, Hell hath no fury like an über geek scorned...
So they set a trap, creating bogus results for meaningless words, such as 'hrybbprqag' which returned a real result about a type of furniture.
Sure enough, the same results soon cropped up on Bing. Being Google, they repeated the experiment a few times to be absolutely sure.
As Google fellow Amut Singhal put it: "... some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation."
The brilliant thing is that Google allowed Microsoft the opportunity to fess up before revealing their little trap. Microsoft denied any wrongdoing and were subsequently exposed in this article: Microsoft's Bing uses Google search results and denies it
Whatever happens next, it's bound to be entertaining. After all, Hell hath no fury like an über geek scorned...
Tuesday
Zen 675: Ham - the first hominid in space
Fifty years ago yesterday, a 37-pound chimp was blasted into space in a tiny capsule. His name was Ham and he reached a hitherto unheard of height of 160 miles above the Earth. Not only that, but the plucky primate made it back down without a scratch in an epic journey that lasted barely 16 minutes.
The flight took the Space Race - already a hyper-frenetic dash for the stars - to an entirely new level of breakneck development. Ham, for his part, become something of a superstar, although he never lost his taste for the simple things in life, like bananas. And people.
This Life photo gallery has the full story. It makes an interesting read and the pictures are brilliant. You'll be inclined to think there never was a more charming, stoical chimpanzee ever to make the leap into the great beyond.
The flight took the Space Race - already a hyper-frenetic dash for the stars - to an entirely new level of breakneck development. Ham, for his part, become something of a superstar, although he never lost his taste for the simple things in life, like bananas. And people.
This Life photo gallery has the full story. It makes an interesting read and the pictures are brilliant. You'll be inclined to think there never was a more charming, stoical chimpanzee ever to make the leap into the great beyond.
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| Ham returns safe and sound to a hero's welcome. |
Zen 674: Stupid football fan makes stupid name change and now looks really, really stupid
A Liverpool fan from Scunthorpe (eh?) changed his name last Christmas from Shaun McCormack to Fernando Torres McCormack.
Everyone is now very excited by this, because Torres (the footballer, not the disturbingly besotted fan) has just signed for Chelsea for a squillion pounds.
Ha ha ha ha! sez the internet. What a moron he looks now!
I beg to differ. He looked a moron before.
The fact that he foresaw just such an eventuality in his interview with the mighty organ that is This Is Scunthorpe back in December ("Fernando ... said he would continue to follow his hero even if he were to leave the Anfield-based club") doesn't make him any less of a moron. It simply confirms that he is a moron who was cognisant of exactly how moronic what he was doing was from the very outset.
But he is not alone. This Is Scunthorpe spoke to the Deed Poll people and discovered that there was also a Stephen Gerrard, a Mr Crystal Palace and a Doctor Three Lions Churchill. Morons all.
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| The real Fernando Torres - camp much? |
Ha ha ha ha! sez the internet. What a moron he looks now!
I beg to differ. He looked a moron before.
The fact that he foresaw just such an eventuality in his interview with the mighty organ that is This Is Scunthorpe back in December ("Fernando ... said he would continue to follow his hero even if he were to leave the Anfield-based club") doesn't make him any less of a moron. It simply confirms that he is a moron who was cognisant of exactly how moronic what he was doing was from the very outset.
But he is not alone. This Is Scunthorpe spoke to the Deed Poll people and discovered that there was also a Stephen Gerrard, a Mr Crystal Palace and a Doctor Three Lions Churchill. Morons all.
Zen 673: Come on South Dakota, show me some love
Wooohoooo! I've scored two readers from North Dakota!!!! I have no idea why, but I'm happy to have you here, people. Sincerely, welcome.
A while back, I wrote a post asking why North and South Dakota were the only two states in the whole of the US that had never paid Otter Zen a visit. I'm humbled and grateful to have cracked the North Dakotans at long last.
But it begs the question: how long do I have to hold out before South Dakota shows me some love?
Related link: Zen 498: What did I ever do to North and South Dakota?
A while back, I wrote a post asking why North and South Dakota were the only two states in the whole of the US that had never paid Otter Zen a visit. I'm humbled and grateful to have cracked the North Dakotans at long last.
But it begs the question: how long do I have to hold out before South Dakota shows me some love?
Related link: Zen 498: What did I ever do to North and South Dakota?
Zen 672: China news steals footage from Top Gun
On 23 January, China Central TV's news programme covered a story about some wildly and unequivocally successful air force drills that reinforced the inate superiority of the mother country's new communism. Or some such.
It illustrated this scintillating piece with footage of a J-10 fighter on just such a drill, successfully hunting down, engaging and killing an enemy plane. Astonishingly, the moment of impact and ensuing explosion is frame-for-frame identical to an explosion in the final aerial battle of Eighties camp classic, Top Gun.
What were the odds on that? Unfortunately, CCTV were unavailable for comment, so here's an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.
It illustrated this scintillating piece with footage of a J-10 fighter on just such a drill, successfully hunting down, engaging and killing an enemy plane. Astonishingly, the moment of impact and ensuing explosion is frame-for-frame identical to an explosion in the final aerial battle of Eighties camp classic, Top Gun.
What were the odds on that? Unfortunately, CCTV were unavailable for comment, so here's an analysis by the Wall Street Journal.
Zen 671: Ambulance chasing - getting it at the source
Have you been injured? Nice work Einstein. It's an appointment card for the fracture clinic.
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