Bob-a-job-alog-a-roonie

The Aussie government is looking for a brand as good as NZ's "100% Pure", and are spending $20M on it.

Here's a suggestion for free:

Every Aussie Thing

What an odd little critter - a mammal that has a venomous bite like a snake, and in Hispaniola the last few remain, verging on extinction. I think he would make a good cartoon character, and then the fame could save him from disappearing forever...

Labels: solenodon

Re­search­ers say the mo­lec­u­lar struc­ture of wa­ter can be com­pared to a crowd­ed res­tau­rant with a dance floor, where pa­trons—the “mol­e­cules”—al­ter­nate­ly switch be­tween danc­ing ex­cit­ed­ly, and sit­ting in or­derly fash­ion at ta­bles.

Now we have an interesting situation. Light can be in wave or particle form, and water can be sitting or dancing. These two fundamental requirements for life (I know there are creatures living in the dark, but they must rely on light indirectly...) can come in two quite different states at the molecular level. We also know that in quantum physics things can be in different states, depending on observation.

What if the power of light and water arises from them having quantum abilities at a more macro level than anything else? What if the answer to quantum physics is to look at it as if the particles act like water or light?

Could it be that simple?

Labels: light, quantum physics, water

I'm absent-minded, my memory is like a sieve. My friends consider me to be a tightwad, but to me it's just not spending money unwisely. And I'm clumsy - so much so that I refuse to work with machinery, and definitely not lawnmowers or chainsaws.

Is there an underlying connection? I believe there might be. It's all about being wired for efficiency.

Have you ever made it home after a night of heavy drinking, yet the next day have no collection of how? It's just your brain being efficient with what remains of your faculties. Once you are set on a safe, known path home (taxi, train, walking, lift from a friend), there's no need to remember it. Well, not at the cost of using your brain cells for something else, like not being run over as you cross the road.

Clumsiness. Doesn't usually result in major damage or injury. Usually just little things. Perhaps my brain has decided that caring about those little accidents is not worth the mental expense. Like a shopkeeper ignoring shoplifters, because instead of watching out for them he could he directing his energy towards making sales.

Tightwads, are actually often generous. Sometimes tightwads die intestate, with millions in the bank. There's more to it than not spending your cash. To me, it's just another expression of subconscious efficiency.

So, if you know anyone who is clumsy, a tightwad, or forgetful - ask them if the other 2 also apply.

Labels: clumsy, efficient, forgetful, tightfisted

Someone has invented a bastard lovechild, a cross between having a code tattoed on your forehead, and a RFID chip implanted under your skin:

“The Register reports that a St Louis based company, Somark Innovations, has successfully tested RFID tattoos to be used for tracking cattle and other animals. Details are limited for the actual tattoo, but it’s said to contain no metals and can be read up to about four feet away. Engadget has some more details on the matter. And yes, the article does mention RFID tattoos are possible for people, specifically the military. From the article: ‘The system developed by Somark uses an array of needles to quickly inject a pattern of dots into each animal, with the pattern changing for each injection. This pattern can then be read from over a meter away using a proprietary reader operating at high frequency.’”

It's real, and although it might take decades, I feel sure that somewhere on Earth it will be implemented :(

More here, and remember the name, SoMark:
http://somarkinnovations.com/technology/

Labels: mark, rfid, somark, tattoo

I always knew that my grandfather's uncle spent some time in Samoa, but until today I had never heard of the Mau Uprising, nor his possible involvement:

The second major incident arose out of an initially peaceful protest by the Mau (literally translates as "Strongly held Opinion"), a non-violent popular movement which arose in the early 1920s in protest against the mistreatment of the Samoan people by the New Zealand administration. The Mau was initially lead by Olaf Nelson, who was half Samoan and half Swedish. Nelson was eventually exiled during the late 1920s and early 1930s, but he continued to assist the organization financially and politically. In following the Mau's non-violent philosophy, the newly elected leader, High Chief Tupua Tamasese Lealofi, led his fellow uniformed Mau in a peaceful demonstration in downtown Apia on 28 December 1929. The New Zealand police attempted to arrest one of the leaders in the demonstration. When he resisted, a struggle developed between the police and the Mau. The officers began to fire randomly into the crowd and a Lewis machine gun, mounted in preparation for this demonstration, was used to disperse the Mau. Chief Tamasese was shot from behind and killed while trying to bring calm and order to the Mau demonstrators, screaming "Peace, Samoa". Ten others died that day and approximately 50 were injured by gunshot wounds and police batons. That day would come to be known in Samoa as Black Saturday. The Mau grew, remaining steadfastly non-violent, and expanded to include a highly influential women's branch. After repeated efforts by the Samoan people, Western Samoa gained independence in 1962 and signed a Friendship Treaty with New Zealand. Samoa was the first country in the Pacific to become independent.

Here's a photo from the funeral, and at bottom center is my rellie, Alfred Hall Skelton, next to the chief's widow:



So I figure he must have been involved somehow with "Samoa's Gandhi"

Labels: alfred hall skelton, samoa

UK's answer to Eminem a couple of years ago. Quite a good debut album. I saw him play in Melbourne with nothing more than a backing track and mic, and he oozed talent and humility. Drugs get to him? Talent ran out? Disillusioned by the lack of success? Curious.

His last blog entry suggests that he gave up one gig after I saw him...

Labels: plan b

I'm very familiar with the reasons for suggesting 9/11 was an inside job. Now I've found some facts that seem to suggest the London bombings were not made by terrorists:

OFFICIAL STORY
Four British Muslims - Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Jermaine Lindsay, 19, and Hasib Hussain, 18 - blew themselves up using home-made explosives, killing 56 and injuring 700 on three Tube trains and a double-decker bus.

They had travelled on a mainline train from Luton into King's Cross Thameslink Station in London, each carrying a heavy rucksack of explosives.

It is a version of events that has been endorsed by a high-level Parliamentary inquiry and a government report, both published in May 2006 ten months after the event, based on 12,500 statements, a police examination of 142 computers and 6,000 hours of CCTV footage.

Some facts seem to contradict the official line:

The official reports said the bombers got on the 7.40am train from Luton which would have arrived at King's Cross in good time for them to board the Tube trains. However, the 7.40am train never ran that morning. It was cancelled. The Government has since corrected this information - but only after the error was raised by survivors - saying the bombers actually caught an earlier train, the 7.25am from Luton, for the 35-minute journey to King's Cross. It was due to arrive in the capital at 8am. Yet this throws up more questions than it answers. For this train ran 23 minutes late because of problems with the overhead line which disrupted most of the service between Luton to King's Cross that morning. It arrived in London at 8.23am, say station officials

...a still CCTV photo of the four bombers arriving at the station in Luton is the only one of the four men together on July 7. Controversially, no CCTV images, either still or moving, of them in London have ever been released. The Luton image is also contentious: the quality is poor and the faces of three of the bombers are unidentifiable. The conspiracy theorists say it could be a fake. This photo is timed at four seconds before 7.22am. But if this were the case, the men would have had just three minutes to walk up the stairs at Luton, buy their £22 day return tickets and get to the platform, which was packed with commuters because of the earlier travel disruptions.

...By the most extraordinary coincidence - Ripple Effect says it is a billion-to-one chance - there was a mock terrorist exercise going on in London that day. This was revealed by the organiser and former Scotland Yard officer Peter Power on BBC Radio 5 in the early evening after the atrocity. He said: 'At half-past nine this morning we were running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.'

The above quotes are from the Daily Mail. Further weirdness includes:

• They purchased return train tickets
• They had identifying documents on them, allowing police to locate their bomb-making HQ

Lots of well-balanced and researched info is at:
http://julyseventh.co.uk/

Labels: london bombings