About time a pram was marketed towards dads. Going to a joint like Baby Bunting can leave one feeling, how would one say — with mixed feelings. You walk out with even less knowledge about prams than the 10/5ths of fuck all you already had. Until you go to Google and discover this ad for the Urbo:
Archive for category The Internet
When Ads Work
Oct 11
I am not a tech-head
Aug 18
About 14 years ago, my then employer replaced the dodgy old green screen terminals in the office with desktop pc’s running Windows, gave us all internet access and from there on in, the way I went about my work changed completely.
I am not a tech-head.
But it became immediately apparent to me back then that if I wished to remain relevant to the workforce for the remainder of my working life, what I would need to do was get across all this new-fangled technology and have a clue.
Which I did, and which I have.
But it does not appear to be apparent to the current leader of the federal opposition and many of his acolytes that if this country wishes to remain relevant to the ways of the world and how it will go about its business in the future, what it needs to do is stop thinking the future will be secured for an eternity if only we continue to invest all our high hopes in a small clutch of billionaire mining giants whose sole fucking talent is pulling rocks out of the fucking ground and selling them to fucking China who then make stuff and then fucking well sell it back to us.
We need to make some fucking stuff of our own.
For it appears to me that investing in technology for the future, things like research and development in the sciences and such, just might be a nifty way to go about proving that this country and its inhabitants are not an intellectually lazy but “lucky” bunch of instant shake ‘n’ bake fucktards whose greatest heroes are an old cunt who hit balls around a fucking paddock with a wooden paddle for a living and some dickhead who liked throwing himself on top of fucking reptiles and maybe, just maybe, we can aspire to be a little less average and ordinary than we really are.
It’s a big ask I know, as plans such as these involve things like … foresight, imagination, innovation, intelligence, the courage of …
…
…
Nah, fuck it.
I have two tin cans and some string.
And a bicycle.
She’ll be right.
As you were.
This does need saying but I am not an Olympian. And this seems to be the work of a bloke called Eric Bana whose employers at Hollywood will be very embarrassed to find they are involved with and engaging in more slurs than my brother Wayne after a dozen 440ml cans of the Woodstock and coke Burbon cans.
It’s no secret that Bana and Hollywood are run by the Leftists from the cartoon revolution of Mikey Mouse to the 3d revolution of the greenist films Avatars and Inception (wind farms).
I’ve could name ten Eric Banas but I won’t.
So Eric, you’d better remove your parody of Trevor McDonald or I will be forced to sick Mel Gibson’s russian bride on you.
You have been warmed.
Trevor McDonalds.
Computer says no
Jul 11
I’m currently in Iran and have discovered that just like Twitter killed blogging, the Iranian net filter killed Twitter.
Blokked!
I knew that this was going to be something I’d have to deal with but I don’t think I’d truly, deep-down prepared myself for it. I’m gonna come home.
Teh internets!
Jun 22
Does Alastair MacGibbon work for an Anti-Virus company, own-shares in an Anti-Virus company, or is he just an idiot?
A prominent cyber-security consultant, Alastair MacGibbon, who is a former director of the AFP’s Australian High Tech Crime Centre and eBay’s former security chief, has called for the proposal to be taken a step further by forcing ISPs to monitor the security of users’ machines and block them from connecting if their browsers, security and operating system software are not up to standard.
Really? REALLY!?
He wants to block people from accessing the internet if they don’t pay ridiculous subscription fees for crippling anti-virus programs. MacGibbon must think we are all chumps.
There is software available, which could be on end-user machines, that would allow my ISP, as I log in, to check that I have my firewall turned on, that I have an antivirus that [it] approves or recommends installed on my computer, and that my operating system and browser are patched. And if those things aren’t met, then [my ISP would not] give me [access]
Only allow me on the Internet if I have an Anti-Virus that my ISP approves? I think Anti-Virus companies would like that alot.
But doesn’t that open up some more problems, like what if my ISP could approve, say, Norton but not Trend Micro because Norton paid the ISP huge kickbacks? And don’t think it’s something that anti-virus companies wouldn’t do.
Alastair MacGibbon, you just made the list.
I’m going to miss him …
Jun 3
Did you know Senator Steve’s website had a section for community discussion? If you knew about this how could you so selfishly keep this to yourself?
Some of my favorite, unedited, forum posts from just five minuts of skimming:
I am rather amazed that so many “climate co2 believers” are NOT in the slightest aware of exactly what! the Copenhagen documents will entail for us Aussies. Green dreams and daft schemes.
It really is a FRAUD and Deception of the highest order, it makes the Faked data and lies and blocking of real science pale into insignificance in its sheer enormity in the subterfuge used to HIDE the Agenda of the EU..UN B*st*rdry.
for those who are not willing to read it, there is a film clip available via You tube, by Lord Monckton, a 5 part series , Pay attention as he tells what they did to HIDE the real agenda and details..
How long till we’re all required to have our medicare number tattooed on our foreheads?
But my favourite is Maurice:
Senator Feildind
I have been a swinging voter all of my voting life. I have, I suspect like most Australians, grown tired of the waste of tax payers funds and the way the two major parties behave. Whilst I appreciate the fundimentals of the Westminster system and the fantastic democratic society that we live in, I am looking for a genuine change in the people who would lead our nation. Your party appears to be one that has actually left the “primary school yard” and can communicate with the general population on equal terms. Do you have party members in my electorate who I could cast my vote to in the eventual, forthcoming federal election. I too am one who served my nation for 28 years in the ADF and I find myself of late, looking at the current and alternate government and asking myself at times why?
Internet, please don’t ever change.
#SocialMediaExpert
Apr 20
Remember that classic television sketch all those years ago when Andrew Denton pushed a wheelbarrow of foam Logie statuettes along the streets, handing them out indiscriminately to random passers-by? (I’ve been looking all over YouTube for a clip but can’t find out — if you can find a link make sure you share it with us.) Anyway, just as Logies are fairly worthless as badges of talent, so is the tag “social media expert” which is usually worn sarcastically by people who make any sort of comment about teh Internet, and sometimes is worn un-sarcastically by people who actually think their use of social media makes them an expert. On Twitter, the badge is hashed up thus: #SocialMediaExpert.
With this in mind, Groupthink is looking to award the #SocialMediaExpert badge to anyone who can share with us a nugget of social media wisdom. Once you’ve been awarded your #SocialMediaExpert badge you may wear it with pride all over the Tubes and if anyone questions your credentials simply direct them to the University of Groupthink (Intertubes faculty).
So, get to it. Nuggets of social media wisdom in comments.
“I agree”
Apr 19
In the modern digital world, at least once every day I will tick a box stating that “I have read and agree to the terms and conditions”.
I rarely read them, I don’t care enough.
I would regularly joke with my friends that a thousand software manufactures could own my soul by now and I’d have no idea.
We all thought it was hilarious.
Yeah, well… They do.
A COMPUTER game retailer has revealed that it legally owns the souls of thousands of online shoppers, thanks to a clause in the terms and conditions they agreed to.
See, apparently this computer game retailer, GameStation, had the initiative to install what they called an “immortal soul clause” in their contract.
“By placing an order via this Web site on the first day of the fourth month of the year 2010 Anno Domini, you agree to grant Us a non transferable option to claim, for now and for ever more, your immortal soul. Should We wish to exercise this option, you agree to surrender your immortal soul, and any claim you may have on it, within 5 (five) working days of receiving written notification from gamesation.co.uk (sic) or one of its duly authorised minions.”
It allowed them to claim your soul at any time the desired, they even reserved the right “to serve such notice in 6 (six) foot high letters of fire”.
I, for one, welcome the precedent set by this new form of legal contract and am excited by the possibilities it has opened. I look forward to other inovative organizations adopting the initiative in their binding contracts.
I have made my online life easier by giving Google control of everything, imagine how streamlined my life could be if I just gave them control over my soul too (but you know, it’s only a technicality, it’s not like they’d never *do* anything with it, right?).
We all know Apple already owns every pathetic Mac-fan-boy-who-lined-up-for-an-iPad-for-days-and-wants-Steve-Jobs-for-his-body’s soul, so why not make it official in a binding contract? In exchange for their soul they could get Apple bumper stickers.
This is just the beginning of course, the potential is limitless. TV networks, newspapers (perhaps Rupert would accept payment of eternal souls to populate his city of the damned in lieu of cash to get past his paywall. It would certainly save him some hassle when it comes to finding breakfast), political parties and NGOs. This is the dawn of an exciting new day in End User License Agreements.
Blog CPR
Mar 30
Right, that’s it. I’m going to come straight out and admit it: Twitter has killed blogging. Well, maybe not killed it but definitely wounded it.
You see, once upon a time (like, two to seven years ago) all the nerds on the Internets used blogs as a means by which to swap smart-arsed comments and pithy one-liners; good posts on good blogs were not just good posts in their own right but good conversation starters as well. Communities of like-minded (and some oppositionally-minded) people formed and gathered around their favourite blogs for discussion and larfs. Then along came the Facebooks and the Twitters (especially the Twitters) and all of a sudden those nerd communities that had come together thanks to blogs moved elsewhere to swap those comments and lines.
Now, in the future (like, 2010) there are still lots of awesome blogs and blog posts around but the awesome conversation tends to take place on the Twitters. Even if good blog posts are good conversation starters, the conversations decreasingly take place in the comment threads below the post.
But it’s not just the commenters whose behaviour has changed — the authors are doing things differently as well. I used to be a prolific blogger, averaging five to ten posts per week, but now I reckon I might punch out one a week if I’m lucky. True, I write for other non-blog outlets now, but the main reason is that when a thought comes into my head that would previously act as the seed for a blog post I now tweet it instead.
As much as I love Twitter and see the evolution of online interaction as an exciting thing, I do miss my blogging from both the perspective of the author and from the perspective of comment discussion participant. For this reason I am going to force myself to blog more, holding back tweetable thoughts and turning them instead into posts. I’m also going to get back into the habit of commenting on blog posts instead of taking my discussion to Twitter.
Who’s with me and who’s against me?