Monthly Archive for November, 2005

“Radcliffe Project”

Published
by
Sal
on November 30, 2005
in Podcasts and Strange
. 0 Comments

Kudos to Robert Levi for creating a bizarre peice of ‘outsider’ media: called “Radcliffe Project“, 21 minutes of not-quite slash-fiction combined with copious conspiracy theories, but performed as a commentary to the 2nd Harry-Potter movie. This disturbing, but hillarious performance can be downloaded from the radio4all podcast network.

The premise of this recording is that the performer allegedly believes that the child actor (Radcliffe) from the Harry Potter fims is somehow in love with him. He alleges that the Harry Potter films contain coded messages of put theire by the child actors with the assistance of the film’s directors.

These messages are intended to tell us that the actors are prisoners of the Time-Warner film company, who are agents of the author J.K. Rowling. We are told that she is some sort of criminal mastermind and wishes to subject the children to peril for her personal financial gain. We also learn that Radcliffe is not British but from New Jersey.

As with the best outsider media, we are left to judge if this is a genuinely disturbed mind or fake insanity. Clearly his theories are absurd but that is not the point: The question is, does he geuninely believe these notions or is it just a performance?

The low production standards and creepy voiceover (we can hear the film playing in the background), make either interpretation likely. Could he actually believe that child actors in an entirely different continent are sending him coded messages of affection? Am I sick for finding humor in what might actually be a criminal offense in some countries? If you are able to derive any pleasure from this hap-hazardly produced stream of conciousness, it comes from the ambiguity. There are no clues which would obviously mark this performance as a work of humor, and yet it is brilliant comedy.

This is what happens if you oppose Microsoft

Published
by
Sal
on November 27, 2005
in Free Software
. 0 Comments

In the same week that a cover-story from ZDNet revealed that a major reason for not disclosing a migration from Microsoft to Open-Source products is the expectation of PR backlash, we see exactly what Ingrid Marson described in principle occuring in Boston.

Peter J Quinn is famous for being the IT officer in Boston who first proposed migrating the state’s thousands of workstations from Microsoft Windows and Office over to Linux and OpenDoc. While this is bound to be an expensive migration, all of the experts agree that keeping state documents in a free and open format like OpenDoc is likely to be the best way to ensure that documents remain readable for the forseeable future.

For having the temerity to suggest buying less Microsoft products, it appears that Peter has the latest latest victim of a powerful PR machine.

Of course big companies like microsoft have people to do their dirty work for them, and in this case it’s globe staff-writers Stephen Kurkjian and Robert Weisman, who no doubt became jealous of Maureen O’Gara’s reputation for bottom-of-the-barrel muckraking.

Strangely enough, their article makes no mention at all of the conflict which has made Massachusetts the focus of attention of both Microsoft and the Open-Source companies. The authors no-doubt felt it would undermine their story to mention that Peter has proposed a migration away from Microsoft products and this would cost the software monopoly many millions in annual revenue. More seriously, this would allow Microsoft’s rivals to get a foot in the door and establish some serious competition.

It’s not a surprise that Microsoft have unleashed their full brigade of spin-doctors, publicists and lobbyists to drag any who oppose them into the gutter.

Tell This Child the War on Terror is Unjust

Published
by
Sal
on November 21, 2005
in Politics
. 0 Comments

A recent blog-posting on the “Shelley the Republican” blog demonstrates that you can justify almost any act of violence, repression and destruction by posting an image of a small blond child weeping at a funeral. When a small blond kid cries then armies move. Exceptional budgets are authorized and the brave and patriotic armed forces go to work.

As shelley says: “we never want our citizens to suffer like this again”, because she knows that nothing ends suffering like an international mobilization followed by a multi-year hostile occupation.

Now I very much doubt that American conservatives get to see images of starving and mutilated olive-skinned children on their nightly news; That sort of image doesn’t sell a war in the same way that weeping blond children do.

When asked to justify war in Iraq, most war-supporters will quickly remind us of Saddam’s appalling human rights record. They will position American and British involvement in the middle-east as if it were some kind of humanitarian mission. They genuinely believe that their president authorized a $200bn spend for mainly humanitarian reasons.

“I completely support the fact we should to to Iran, Syria, North Korea and any other country that threatens peace in civilization all Cesear-style. ” - Shelley

The truth comes out; many of the people who most avidly support war in Iraq are explicit supporters of imperialism, and would happily support their politicians if they decided to nuke the whole of the middle-east. Anything to keep the depressing foreign death-toll from their nightly news.

“Shelley for President - the one candidate who isn’t afraid to use a nuclear weapon to discipline out of control, weaker governments who call for our death. I’m willing to stake my reputation that the U.S. Colony of Iran could be a great tourist destination. I won’t even bother to set up a Constitution.” - “Shelley”

What I find most baffling about this whole thing is that many of the people who are most comfortable with the idea of nuclear genocide are also the ones who claim to be Christians. I’m not aware of any teachings of the mythical christ-figure advocating thermo-nuclear obliteration of ones foes, but then again I don’t pay too much attention to my bible.

Three new Epistaxes, and one of Hooting Yard

Published
by
Sal
on November 9, 2005
in Interesting, Podcasts, Strange and voffle
. 0 Comments

I’ve just uploaded three more episodes of the exciting “Epistaxis Time” podcast series to the archive. Please listen and be disturbed. I’ve also posted the last 2004 episode of “Hooting Yard” to the Resonance podcast collection.

Shelley the Republican

Published
by
Sal
on November 9, 2005
in Interesting, Podcasts and Politics
. 0 Comments

A quick glance through the politics section of the iTunes music store will show a bias towards left-wing or liberal podcasts. I guess conservatives generally don’t feel the need to take up the microphone when there are so many nationally syndicated American broadcasters willing to big-up the government.

Americans can watch Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly or the outrageous Anne Coulter, who famously described her middle-eastern foreign policy as “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity“.

Most conservatives do not feel a compelling need for DIY media; after all they are hardly likely to feel threatened by corporate controlled news. That explains why they feel no need for a conservative version of Indymedia.org - they have Fox!

Despite this, some conservatives have taken up podcasting. Introducing “Shelley the Republican”: a rising star of conservatism: She lives in Rural Texas and is an one of a new wave of republican activists. You can tell from her name that she is a passionate supporter of George W Bush, and devotes a great deal of personal time and energy to talking up her government’s achievements.

Now Shelley’s opinions are anything but moderate; I personally find them shocking. She Hates Islam. She suspects that most Moslems are terrorists or at least terrorist supporters. The only people she dislikes more than Moslems are the French, whom she describes as “soft, gay and tolerant”. I didnt have the opportunity to ask her what she thinks of gays, but I imagine she thinks it’s un-natural, evail and wrong.

So if I were a gay French Moslem, I expect she would be tempted to shoot on site.

I’m fascinated by Shelly because she is as different from me as any English speaking person is likely to be. Even though I disagree with her on almost any point we care to raise, I think it’s important to understand her point of view because great many Americans think like her.

Shelley is prepared to say what core Republican party supporters are really thinking. She and many like her form the base of the Bush Administration’s power.

George W Bush’s policy is designed to please Shelley and millions of Americans who think like her. I think the perverse policies that come out of Downing St are designed to please President Bush, so to some extent, by understanding Shelley we can understand what motivates Tony Blair.

One last thing; If you decide to leave a comment on Shelley’s blog please be polite and constructive. Shelly gets substantially more readers than I do, and I would hate to have them make a preemptive “shock and awe” strike on my blog; remember they have guns!

Stop this drug-taking madness!

Published
by
Sal
on November 4, 2005
in Politics
. 0 Comments

What is the Conservative party coming to when a leadership candidate dares to base drugs policy on facts, reasoning and scientific evidence? What right has this man to break with decades of tradition; I understood that Conservative party policy should be based only on the faith-based opinions of Daily Mail readers.

In a televised debate, David Cameron suggested that “ecstasy” (a.k.a. MDMA) ought to have it’s legal status downgraded. His rationale is that MDMA is demonstrably less harmful than other drugs in “Class A”, the classification given to the most addictive or damaging substances. Other members of this family include heroin, cocaine and crack-cocaine.

Anybody who has been on a night out in any of the UK knows that people take drugs, and mainly they have a good time. Of the millions of people who take drugs, most do not end up in hospital, prison or the morgue. Extasy users generally do not start believing they can breathe underwater or fly from tall buildings. They are also unlikely to start fights and there have been few recorded instances of road accidents while under the influence of the drug.

This is obviously a cynical gesture to enfranchise and include the next generation of potential conservative voters. Davis thinks he can make his party appeal to these criminals who should be arrested and then locked up in prison until they can see the grave error of their ways.

While it almost certainly has harmful side-effects, the consequences of prolonged use are no worse than cigarettes or alcohol. Or at least, that is what the soft-minded liberals want you to think! Of course you know all this is nonsense.

Dont belive the liberals; This is what happens to ALL drug users.

I personally side with our home-secretary Charles Clarke, who reminds us that according to legend, a girl called Leah Betts took once a pill and died shortly after. Never mind that Leah died drinking too much water, rather than as a direct consequence of the drug; Never mind that study after study confirm the idea that not all Class A drugs are as harmful as crack, we should admire Clarke’s steadfast adherence to dogma in the face of overwhelming fact, reason and popular sentiment.

Government IT Failure

Published
by
Sal
on November 1, 2005
in Politics
. 0 Comments

Yet another major government computer project has failed; This time it’s the new NHS bookings system. The NHS are one of the UK government’s most IT literate departments, but as we can see, even relatively simple implementation and integration projects have a tendency to fail.

When I say “relatively” I mean relative to Blunkett and Clarke’s legacy – the National ID card system. This mother of all databases will need to be integrated into every single public-facing government office including all public transport infrastructure, health services, public libraries and pretty much any location where citizen and government meet.

Unlike previous IT failures which only had to deal with a small subset of our population (e.g. Single mums, pensioners or patients, people in ambulances), the National ID card will need to deal with the entire adult population of the country. That means it will be many orders of magnitude harder to implement than any IT project our nation has ever conceived. The latest estimates from the London School of Economics put the total cost of the system of the ID card system at £18 Billion, which allegedly corresponds to an unsubsidized cost of more than £100 per citizen.

Practically speaking, we might argue that there is no real danger of a civil rights abuse resulting from the ID card system because there is no way that this or any other government will be able to deliver the system as proposed. We cannot afford it, and the public sector lacks the skills needed to manage a project of this scale. If it is built, it will fail. The cost of failure will be substantially greater than any theoretical savings we might make by using an ID card to reduce fraud.

If a smaller project like that NHS Bookings system system cannot be delivered on budget or on time, what hope do the government have of delivering anything more substantial?