I don’t really like to advertise anything on my website, but today I would like to make an exception. For the past few months my brother has been working on a new photo sharing website, Pics-O.com. He hopes that it will be to pictures what YouTube is to videos.

This website is a new direction for my brother’s business. Usually he creates websites for other people, but this time he is creating the website for himself. The site will make money from advertising, hopefully.

The idea is for people to upload photographs that they think are cool. Other people will then be able to rank the image and leave comments. One interesting thing is that people can vote whether they think a picture has been digitally altered. The site will then work out a percentage of people who think the images is fake.

Anyway make sure you give my brother’s website a visit, upload a few photos and don’t forget to click on the ads.

The “Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer setting” on MacBooks, under certain conditions, could destroy your laptop as Brian X. Chen from Gadget Lab discovered.

I always knew Apple was evil!

The other night I was watching the Empire Strikes Back. You know the part where Boba Fett says one of his few lines to Darth Vader, “he is worth a lot to me?” That line now really pisses me off because George Lucas thought it would be a brilliant idea re-do all of Boba Fett’s dialogue with that of Temuera Morrison. In short Boba Fett now has a New Zealand accent. I really hate it when someone bends over your favourite movie and fucks it.

Anyway, I would now like to catalogue all the ways George Lucas has fucked Star Wars for life.

The new movies episodes one two and three are badly written, badly acted and badly directed. They have so much computer animation that they look very fake. Jar Jar Binks needs to die. They seem to be written for kids and not adults. Many of the scenes are utterly ridiculous and completely unbelievable even if they do occur in the Star Wars universe.

Battle droids: This one counts for two. First, the great thing about the original Star Wars movies is that they did not reference popular culture. They attempted to create a new popular culture one for the Star Wars universe. In the new movies the battle droids engage in slapstick comedy. I am sorry, but the Marx brothers belong to our own universe not the Star Wars universe. Battle droids are also meant to be incredibly powerful and scary combat machines, it says so in all those Star Wars books I read. I do not find comedians scary even if they are made of metal and are armed.

Anakin Skywalker made C-3PO: What the fuck? Need I say more?

In the 1997 special edition Star Wars: A New Hope they modified the scene where and Greedo confronts Han Solo to make it so Greedo fires first.

At the end of Return of the Jedi they have inserted Hayden Christiansen instead of Sebastian Shaw who played the dying Anakin skywalker earlier in the film. They have also changed the music of this end scene.

In the 1999 Star Wars novel Vector Prime they killed Chewbacca. This event prompted me to sell my large collection of Star Wars books on eBay in protest.

I really don’t understand why or how George Lucas completely fucked up Star Wars. If you have any more fuck ups to add, I would love to see them in the comments.

You have no doubt heard about the war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government. According to recent reports the Tamil Tigers are all but defeated. Of course this war is taking a terrible toll on the ordinary Tamil population.

Recently, Tamils around the world have been calling for a ceasefire in northern Sri Lanka. Whenever I see these protests on the news there are people holding up a particular flag. Of course all protest groups have flags. A flag represents who you are. But have a close look at the flag of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

There is a fierce tiger in the middle surrounded by a halo of what look like bullets above crossed rifles with bayonets attached. And if this wasn’t enough the background of the flag is red. Which just happens to be the colour of well…. you know.

What is an ordinary person, who knows nothing about the conflict, supposed to think when they see protesters waving a flag such as this? Do they immediately write to their local member and say: please tell the Prime Minister to support a ceasefire? Or instead do they think it is the cynical last gasp of a terrorist organisation? It is beyond ironic that people who wave of flag like this would ask for a ceasefire.

There are many Tamils who are suffering tremendously because of this war. If you want help from the international community you need to persuade them to your cause. A flag of such violent symbolism is not going to convince people that your cause is just.

The first rain in over three months has finally put an end to the Victorian bushfire crisis. It has now been a month since Black Saturday when thousands of homes were destroyed and over 200 people lost their lives.
 
I think it is now time to talk about what created the conditions that led up to a series of the worst firestorms Australia has ever seen.
 
The highest temperature ever recorded in Victoria of 46.6°C (115.9°F) occurred on Black Saturday the 7th of February, 2009. There had been over a decade of drought and it had not rained for three months previously. Just a week before Black Saturday, between the 28th and 30th of January there were three days in a row over 43°C (110°F), something that has never happened before in Melbourne.
 
I believe these three days were the biggest contributors to the perfect fire conditions on Black Saturday. These three over 43°C days caused severe heat stress and outright killed many plants. Many of the trees survived one of these days, but after two they were dead and after three they looked like they had been baked in an oven. The leaves on many of these plants did not have a single drop of moisture left in them and would crumble in your hand. Like a tree that had been dead for some time, but these plants had been very alive just a few days before. These trees became perfect fire Material. I’ve spoken to many people who’ve lived their entire lives in Melbourne and have never seen heat damage on this scale ever.
 
These extraordinary days also had a terrible effect on the wildlife. Ringtail possums were falling dead out of the trees. Koalas entered backyards desperately seeking water - koalas rarely drink water receiving most of their moisture from the eucalyptus leaves they eat. Koalas also usually steer clear of humans - as far as I know this behaviour is unprecedented.
 
Very low humidity coupled with very dry forests and gale force winds created a perfect firestorm.
All these events proved to me that global warming is a fact. Anyone who denies it is either a liar or an idiot and should be ignored. If only a few degrees can help create the worst firestorms Australia has ever seen, what would a few extra do? The extra heat would kill entire forests. When trees die and rot they release carbon dioxide that causes the world’s temperature to increase killing more trees. It is a snowball effect that could have terrible consequences.

If climate change is making such a huge difference I think it is way too late to think about trying to reduce our ‘carbon footprint.’ It will be too little too late. More extreme measures need to be taken. The earth is sick. It is time for it to take its medicine. I think Geo engineering is the only way to fix this without having more catastrophic consequences. Just like an obese person takes cholesterol-lowering medication so they can keep living while they eat healthily, exercise and eventually lose the weight.

Geo engineering is the process of using technology to diminish the amount of heat entering Earth’s atmosphere. One idea is to pump sulphur dioxide into the upper atmosphere mimicking the way a large volcanic eruption reduces the global temperature. The best thing about this method is something very similar already happens naturally and it is proven to work.

Some environmentalists and those on the far right who believe in global cooling really hate this proposal, but I do not think we have a lot of choice.

There are several problems with geo engineering:
1.) Who controls Earth’s thermostat? Invariably an international organisation would need to be set up to organise geo engineering efforts and to prevent countries and other organisations going it alone.
2.) It may be used as an excuse to keep releasing carbon dioxide.
3.) There will be side-effects.
4.) Geo engineering would do nothing about other problems caused by a high atmospheric carbon dioxide level such as ocean acidification that causes coral bleaching and the death of marine micro-organisms.

I believe the problems of geo engineering will not be as bad as doing nothing or solely relying on greenhouse gas reduction. Diets take time to time we don’t have. Geo engineering efforts must be coupled with other efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions or remove it from the atmosphere. It is purely a stop gap measure. Geo engineering would reduce global temperatures and hopefully prevent the death of forests that could cause a runaway greenhouse effect. It would also prevent the melting of ice caps and prevent the altering of ocean currents.

Black Saturday is a taste of what the future may hold if we do not make a greater effort to reduce global temperature.

I love Australia I honestly believe is the best country in the world. Australia is one of the few nations that was not founded by conflict. Our country is made up of people from hundreds of different nations all living together in relative harmony.

It is amazing to walk down the street your nose will pick up the scent of the best food from many different parts of the world.

Our strongest value is to give people a fair go. We don’t treat new people with suspicion instead we buy them a beer. We make sure everyone is included. In Australia we have no aristocracy everyone is equal we don’t call anyone sir - even the Prime Minister.

But again a chain e-mail threatens everything we hold dear. The ideas of Pauline Hanson have been discredited and her racist ideals are no longer fit for the political arena - but her beliefs have not died. Many who think how she does are still around. Still sprouting their theories.

The e-mail is titled: It’s Our Country! - Australia the right to leave.

It brings up a few examples like Sydney not wanting to put up Christmas lights or a Muslim woman in South Australia who apparently is veiled in her driver’s licence photo.

It goes on to say how many recent immigrants are diluting our sovereignty and our national identity.

This rant starts with: “IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It! I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.”

And goes on with: “However, the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the ‘politically correct’ crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was offending others. I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Australia.”

And later: “We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Leba…” You get the idea.

There are a few questions would like to ask the authors of this e-mail. Do you eat salami, kebabs, noodles, pizza or lasagne? You do! Well that must make you a fucking wog. Get out. Leave. I don’t want your kind in Australia. Bloody hypocrites. No seriously you are entitled to your own opinion, but try to keep your beliefs consistent.

The e-mail gets a little strange towards the end with: “’In God We Trust’ is our National Motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.”

I never knew Australia had a motto, but anyway… I would argue one of the best things about Australia is that God is not a large part of our culture. In Australia it is considered rude to judge people according to their beliefs. I am an atheist and I do not believe I’ve ever been criticised for my lack of belief. This is part of our belief in the fair go. No matter if you are black, brown, beige or purple or whether you have unusual religious beliefs or if you are disabled.

The funny thing about this e-mail (as you may have guessed) is that it’s not original. This was originally written for a local newspaper in the American state of Georgia. One or two words have been changed for an Australian audience but essentially it is exactly the same. The two examples at the top of the e-mail about Sydney Christmas lights and the female Muslim driver were not in the original article. A few things were added and taken out and it was turned into a chain e-mail.

The source of the Sydney Christmas lights story is about the Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore in 2004 wished to cut down on the expenditure for Christmas decorations. Some right-wing commentators suggested that maybe the real reason was not to offend Muslims. Then Prime Minister John Howard agreed with them. Clover Moore denied this was the reason and in subsequent years emphasised the role of Christianity in Christmas.

In the American chain e-mail it was a Muslim woman in Florida who was veiled on her driver’s licence - she must have emigrated to South Australia. There is also an English version of the e-mail. That Muslim woman gets around a bit.

This e-mail is another sad example of ignorant people trying use lies and so-called “patriotism” to incite hatred of others.

The authors of this e-mail would see Australia a boring place with only meat and three veg to eat. There would be no cafes with tables and chairs in front. Pizza and the famous and the most Aussie of all dishes chicken parmigiana would be banned.

Cultures that are open and flexible are successful. Those that are closed and ignorant die a slow and often painful death. Even our language is a bastard combination of French Saxon, Latin and many others. This is one of the reasons why it is the most successful language ever known. The very culture you live in was forged by the blending of others.

As soon someone begins to believe that their culture is superior to others people start being hurt. I believe that every culture that has come to Australia has improved our society - from the Chinese during the gold rush and the Afghans that opened up the interior of our country to the aboriginals that were here before we came.

Please do not demonstrate your ignorance by forwarding e-mails such as this.

The torture debate has started up again. In the new World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King there is a quests called “the art of persuasion.” This quest involves the torture of a captive through the use of a device called the neural needler.

This of course has stirred up all sorts of controversy, with those for and against torture doing battle again. I do not wish to talk about the controversy or the morality of including such a quest in a game. I do wish to make an attempt to explain why torture is not only bad, but in some ways counter-productive.

The most popular argument put forward by torture proponents is the ticking time bomb scenario. Terrorists have placed a bomb somewhere in a crowded city. The ‘good’ guys have captured one of them. They think he knows where the bomb is planted. He says that he knows nothing about it. The answer is of course to torture the information out of him.

Many people would say that torture is okay in that scenario - one person is sacrificed to save hundreds.

Most people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid pain. The threat of torture would be enough for most people to crack and reveal everything they know. But just imagine that you are the one being tortured. Wouldn’t you say anything to get out of that room, to make them stop? Rationality would be the first thing to leave your mind. Your goal would not be to tell the truth it would be for the torture to stop.

The person doing the torture would not know when you are telling the truth. The interrogators would have an idea of the information they wish to obtain from you. And you would no doubt have an image of the information they want. What if the truth is something that the torturers do not wish to hear? Maybe there is no bomb and maybe it is a hoax. What do you think they would do if you told your interrogators this fact? Or if there were multiple bombs and you don’t know where they all are.

What if you are innocent?

An innocent captive has a lot more to fear from torture as they have no truth to reveal.

The thing that devalues torture the most is when you look at the big picture. When people are tortured we give the terrorists a gift. They can point to the West and say: “look how evil they are. They talk about the rule of law about human rights and then completely ignore them.” Those who were on the borderline of supporting the terrorists are now able to support them wholeheartedly. It becomes a recruitment tool creating more terrorists.

Even if the torture of one person saves lives, in the long run it will kill many more.

There is a new type of spammer in the world. They take advantage of people’s good nature to spread vicious lies designed to manipulate public opinion.

There are two e-mails that I have received the recently that have greatly angered me. The first I have talked about in my previous post. It is an e-mail titled: That History Does Not Repeat Itself.

In this e-mail is a PowerPoint presentation that really tugs on the heartstrings. It shows terrible photos of the Holocaust. This is followed by the lie that the English school system is forbidden from teaching the Holocaust for fear of upsetting the Muslim population who, supposedly, believe the Holocaust never happened. It is of course completely untrue that the curriculum does not include the Holocaust. In fact teaching of the Holocaust is compulsory in England.

Here is the story that inspired the e-mail. Mid way down it states:”Teaching of the Holocaust is already compulsory in schools…”

Ironically this e-mail uses the Holocaust to stir up racial hatred against Muslims.

There is another similar e-mail on a smaller scale, but almost as nasty. It states:

It is interesting that the federal government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890.00 and each can also get an additional $580.00 in social assistance for a total of $2,470.00.

A single pensioner who, after contributing to the growth and development of Australia for 40 to 50 years, receives only a monthly maximum of $1,012.00 in old age pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.

Maybe our pensioners should apply as refugees!

What this e-mail asserts is total bullshit. Media watch has debunked this particular e-mail three times in the past few years. According to centrelink refugees are eligible to receive the same benefit as other Australians. Remember they are refugees who came here fairly and squarely - not illegal immigrants. E-mail such as this are also designed to stir up hatred of the least fortunate in our society.

In an age where the dreams of terrorists, nationalists and racists are all, but shattered e-mails such as these are the last effort to make public opinion reflect the baser natures of humanity. Be very suspicious of messages that promote a message of hate - do not send them on instead stick them in the trash where they can join their authors in miserable obscurity.

Over the past few weeks I have received some chain e-mails that really pissed me off. This morning I received two chain e-mails with the following message:

Hi everyone

Ericsson are distributing free laptops for their brand promotion. They hope to increase their popularity and sale by this campaign.

All you need to do is send an email about this to 8 people and you will receive an Ericsson T18 Laptop. However, if you send an email about this to 20 or more people, you will receive an Ericsson R320 Laptop.

Make sure you send a copy to: anna[do not send]ericsson.com
Cheers

As soon as I read this I knew it was bullshit yet the two people that sent it to me were not your usual stupid ditzy fools. This particular chain e-mail is very different from the usual in that it asks for the supposed author to receive a copy of the message that you send on. That does not sound so bad? But when you think about it (less than a second in my case) there are millions of people connected to the Internet if even a small fraction of these people respond to the chain letter poor Anna will be receiving hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages.

This could just be a very nasty practical joke or could even be something more serious. This could be a denial of service attack designed to bring down the Ericsson mail servers and all of the people sending these messages are contributing to a criminal act.

This all boils down to please don’t send chain letters. The odd funny e-mail is okay - that is what e-mail is for. But any message that says, “send me on,” should immediately be sent to the junk mail folder - even if it is something you think people should hear.

Last week I received a chain e-mail telling me that the English public school system is no longer allowed to teach the Holocaust for fear of offending the Muslim population. This was not only untrue (teaching the Holocaust is compulsory in English public schools) it was, ironically, using the Holocaust to whip up racial hatred against a religious or ethnic group.

So please junk any chain e-mail you receive. This is what I have done for the past 15 years. I should have died in horrendous circumstances thousands of times over from all the bad luck I have generated by deleting these letters. Instead I satisfy myself that I have the strength of character to resist my superstitious urges.

I need one these, a Sonar II Burner. Finally a hand held laser that can light matches and blind fighter pilots!

Thanks to wired magazine for this, Top 5 Gadgets That Could Get You Arrested.