Ancient Aliens Rule the World.

I have recently been watching a show called 'Ancient Aliens' on History channel. More due to lack of anything else to watch. So I have made it to the 4th episode fairly unscathed. But after struggling to the end of the 4th episode I am not convinced that I am going to make it any further.
For those that don't know, 'Ancient Aliens' works on the premise that thousands of years ago human kind was not doing so well until a bunch of Aliens came and helped us out.

This Is Not a Raleigh Grifter.

Now, as a kid I used to bike everywhere. I loved my bike. It took me all over town. I had a Raleigh Grifter and I am pretty sure there were not too many around. My skills on a bike were confined to getting from place A to place B, maybe riding through the odd creek or jumping from the curb where it dips over peoples driveways. That was it.
Nothing compares to the following dude. His name is Danny MacAskill and he is pretty handy on 2 wheels. Check out the vid after the jump for some mid blowing freestyle.

Freedom Tower construction speeds up.

I looks like the construction of the Freedom Tower in Manhattan is taking a little longer than some would like. Check out the news article after the jump for city and international representatives who are looking forward to the projected completion in 2011.

Only in NZ - Guilty by Accusation

It is hard to believe but true that in New Zealand a new law is about to come into force that will reverse in one single swipe all that democracy and justice stands for, that is the right to innocence until proven guilty.

Terminator Meltdown Update

It seems Christian Bales' outburst has created a lot of controversy and noise prompting many commentators on the web to express their points of view. As per norm most are BS but some do make pretty interesting reading.

Christian Bale, star of The Dark Knight and upcoming Terminator Salvation flicks was recorded losing his toys, lollies, lunch and his mind on set of TS at some poor unfortunate, in the wrong place at the right time DP named Shane Hurlbut.

Some fat guy at aintitcool.com reckons Bale may have been somewhat justified in verbally flaming the dude - read here

Terminator Meltdown

This is absolute gold!

Christian Bale, star of The Dark Knight and upcoming Terminator Salvation flicks is recorded loosing his toys, lollies, lunch and his mind on set of TS at some poor unfortunate, in the wrong place at the right time DP (whatever that is). Bale's onslaught is absolutely priceless!

!WARNING! wear headphones if at work or your mum is near by.
Click here to listen

Mad Spaghetti.

I just saw this pretty cool stop motion video of someone making Spag Bol. Check it.

Snuff Said

Check out the following vid from a BBC3 show called "Snuff Box" a British comedy show. Pretty funny skit, I wonder if the rest of the show is the same. One thing for sure, this is not the way to pick up chicks. Although I am sure it would be cool to use these tactics on the odd occasions. After the Jump.

Just booked my holiday for 2009

Don't have much time for this blog...got stuff to do

Its a place called St Maarten in the Carribean, never heard of it myself. Which is a good thing. It must be really quiet and untouched. I'm not normally a beach kind of guy but would kill for a week in the sun doing nothing.
Found a thing on the web about it..will have a proper look later. Hope its nice.

This is NOT naturewatch

But sometimes you see something and have to share it with the world.


Following on from Mr_Fett's parasitic foot story below (the one where he blamed it on a spider) I was reminded of an extraordinary piece of footage of the male jumping spider (Salticidae, fact fans) and the lengths it will go to to put on a pretty little dance for a bit of female attention. Hardly seems worth it if you ask me.


In the words of the late, great Phil Lynott - "If that female jumpin' spider dont wanna know, forget her"

(Oh, and turn your speakers up)

Military Fail!!!

This one's a quickie.

Grasshopper's Can Fly

I caught this video of a grasshopper hitching a ride on a fighter jet on Bad Astronomy this morning and it reminded me of an incident I had. Check out the video after the jump.

I was flying from Wellington to Auckland on a domestic Air New Zealand flight and had an itchy toe, so I took of my shoe to sort out the problem, only to find a Weta hiding in the toe area of my shoe. Needless to say I nearly shat myself and had to compose myself so that I didn't cry like a girl. I dont know what happened to the Weta after I shook it from my shoe but it got a free trip to Auckland. Must still be lost.
I cant imagine how the pilot was able to just laugh it off, I suppose he doesn't mind creepy crawlies. Notice that he doesnt flinch a bit and keeps flying as if nothing is amiss.

This is NOT the London Eye...

What kind of crazy oddball carnival has a manpowered ferris wheel. Well this one does. Check for the video after the jump.

More plane themed Video's

In keeping with the last post of aircraft and dangerous behaviour, check out the following 2 video's of aircraft doing what they do best.. Woo hoo...

Death Star, Star Destroyer ready to demolish San Fran.

I came across a pretty cool video on Giz tonight. It's an apparent invasion by the Empire. Footage looks real to me so if I were you I would lock my doors and not go outside. Check out the vid after the jump for more details.

Judge...send them down.

After what seems like an interminable wait, the nine assholes who killed a woman during a spiritual cleansing ceremony last year are finally going to stand trial for manslaughter. This has been a long time coming, but these dickheads who get it into their thick skulls that evil spirits, demons of the netherworld or makutu can control people and needs to be cleansed through dangerous and utterly Neanderthal ceremonies, need to be educated. Especially when they take the life of someone else and try and justify it with that sickening word "religion".

Janet Moses was a 22 year old mother of two girls, 3 years and 1 year old, living in Wainuiomata with a relative, just over the hill from Lower Hutt, New Zealand. Her family were firm proponents of the Maori belief system (a mixture of christian and tribal) which included belief in a makutu or curse being able to be placed on a family or individual. Recently, a family member had been suffering ill health and the family believed that it was the result of a makutu being placed on them through a family member stealing a taonga (treasured item). The taonga in question was a stone lion statue from the front of a Greytown Hotel and it was stolen by Janet's sister. They decided to hold a curse lifting or exorcism to remove the curse, and on the evening of October 11, 2007 the family began their wailing, chanting and application of water to drive out the curse. No-one as yet knows what took place that night except the police and the family members at the house, but one neighbour reported loud noises that night "like banging on a wall".


The next day, Friday 12th October, police were called by family members to her house around 5.30pm, and Janet's body was found lying on a bed. The autopsy found that she had died through drowning and the time of death was placed at around 8am that morning. She had lain dead in the house for nearly 8 hours before the police were called. Another victim of the family insanity was one of the 14 year old cousins who was also subjected to the same cruelty, and ended up in hospital.

Well, in what one can only hope is the beginning of one of the most successful cases in police history, 9 of the family members present that fateful night have been passed in for trial after two Justices of the Peace agreed that there was a case of manslaughter to answer to. A further case of cruelty to a child was also passed on for trial for a 10th family member. Good bloody job - I hope they get the bookcase thrown at them. People such as this who value hokey beliefs stemming from the days back when they used to eat each other, over a family members life deserve to be judged very harshly.

At an earlier hearing, apparently one of the lawyers argued for name suppression because "the case involved sensitive cultural issues" and argued "the defendants faced potential public vilification if their identities were revealed". You're damn right they would! And for good reason - they killed someone for nothing! You punished the youngest member of a family for the theft of a stone statue that was taken by someone else - morons!

For those of you thinking that perhaps Manslaughter is not the appropriate charge, and perhaps murder would have been more apt, there's still a hefty price to pay if found guilty.

"The maximum penalty for manslaughter is life imprisonment. The worst cases of manslaughter are near to murder and can attract severe sentences of imprisonment. But a conviction for manslaughter may also result where someone causes the death of another person by a single blow in circumstances where loss of life was not intended, and a sentence less than imprisonment may be appropriate."
NZ Courts

The difference between murder and manslaughter is mainly around premeditation and the sentencing of someone found guilty of murder involves a mandatory non-parole period, usually of no less than 10 years. So this still leaves the judge a wide range of jail time to hand out to the morons in the dock.

In an unsurprising move, all 10 have plead not guilty, and the trial date has been set down for 22 September. Here's hoping the judge sees sense and sends them all down for a long custodial sentence, during which time they can contemplate the life they took with their stupid customs and religious hocus pocus.

Australian gamers pretty pissed - and rightly so

I'm a big fan of the original Fallout game series. I think I fell in love with it during the black and white still images being played during the opening credits, with the dulcet tones of Ron Pearlman ringing in my ears...
War. War never changes.
Its an awesome little clip to get you primed for the post apocalyptic world of the Fallout game, where mutations abound, a desert covers the landscape, and you spend hours and hours building the perfect character to accomplish every single mission you possibly can, including finding the splattered Whale, the Tardis, the Godzilla footprint and the Alien crash site. And now, Bethesda are bringing out the 3rd in the series, and it looks just as tasty as the previous ones. But the Aussies may not be able to see it (without legal chicanery) because their dumb ass Australian Classification Board have refused to give it a rating.

"Obscenity is not a quality inherent in a book or picture, but is solely and exclusively a contribution of the reading mind, and hence cannot be defined in terms of the qualities of a book or picture." Theodore Schroeder, author

It is apparently the problem within the game itself, part of the gameplay in fact, that has drawn the ire of the censors. And its not gratuitous violence (GTA, Condemned 2, pretty much any 1st Person Shooter), depiction of sex (GTA again, Soulcalibur, Duke Nukem 3D) or even banned substance use (GTA, Bioshock, Battlefield Bad Company). No, its much more insidious and dangerous (apparently) than that. Yes its the dreaded....morphine. Huh? Yes, apprently the morons at the OLAC are refusing to give the game a rating (thereby making it illegal to distribute and sell) because the character in the game gains an reward for using drugs. Heres the words :

"In regard to the computer game Fallout 3, the board is of the opinion that the use of morphine in the game has the positive effect of enabling the character to ignore limb pain."

"This ability to progress through the game more easily is the incentive to take the drug while the reward is in the character's abilities."

Am I the only person in the world scratching their head and wondering what illegal substances these twerps imbibed before saying that? What they are effectivley saying is that its okay for characters in a game to snort pounds of coke, inject gallons of heroin, drink till they go blind and smack around (and kill) prostitutes, but its not okay to use morphine in a game to kill the pain? Huh? But in nearly every single game I can think of (thats had much lesser ratings than GTA) the main purpose of the game is to shoot people, and heal yourself when you get shot! In Max Payne, he takes painkillers to restore health and return use of his legs - is that not EXACTLY the same thing? And it was given an MA15+ which means its "not suitable for under 15" BUT this does not mean an under 15 year old cannot buy it if accompanied by an adult. So it means in reality "There's some pretty full on shit in this game. Are you sure your kids should be playing this?" The responsibility falls to the parent to watch what their children are playing/watching and use their discretion. As it should always.

I was originally going to call this post "10 reasons we should not decide who can watch stuff by elected committee", but that sounded a bit naff. But I will still use the original title's idea to explain my point. The problem the Aussie gaming fraternity, and indeed the film appreciation and media consumers in many countries have is that the ones hired to serve on the boards of censorship committees are people with specific moral values that differ to the majority of the intended audience of the game. And this is the biggest problem with Censorship - what may disgust one may titillate another.

“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.” Henry Steele Commager American Historian

When we allow a bunch of people (and I don't mean anyone specific - it could be any bunch of people) to decide what we can and cannot watch\play\listen to in our own homes, we have lost one of our freedoms. And I'm not saying "old sad bastards on Censorship committees have their finger far from the pulse, jammed firmly up their ass". No - if I was on this comitttee I'd ban any and all forms of RnB music - its crap and no-one should have to put up with it. And Kenny G - don't get me started on the big KJ and his abominable wind instruments of torture. Thats my point - what some people (with no taste) like, I despise. But I dont care - because I dont have to put up with it. If I dont like it, I turn it off. If Britney is on the radio, I change the channel. If the god botherers are on the telly, I mute it or turn it off. If the mormons are at the door, I throw the cat at them. No-one is forcing me to tune into something I dont like.

Except in elevators in department stores - whats wrong with those people? Are they inhuman as well as rip-off merchants?

"Censorship reflects society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime." Potter Stewart, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

We should be able to make choices as adults to view whatever the hell it is that interests us, or listen to whatever music we feel like. I agree with an idea that there is a committee to rate things to give us an idea of what this media contains, and that children should not be able to view things that they may be ill equipped to deal with, but the responsibility for deciding what is best for the children lies solely with parents and care givers. Surely the people who are raising these children have a better idea of their maturity levels, and can gauge what is and what isn't appropriate for them? Never let the government dictate to you what their opinion of good and bad is - I've never seen a government get it right yet.

Case in point, the Australian Government - you cant play a video game where you use morphine to make yourself better, but you can help others invade Iraq and kill people in reality. Are they really the best people to be judging what morally right and wrong?

Aussies - if you want to make a difference, head on over to Gameplayer.com.au and sign their petition to the board to get the decision reviewed.

Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" Joseph Henry Jackson, author

Picture That!

A newish website has has been brought to my attention. It comes from the team at Boston.com. Its a blog that they run with high res photo's from around the world and beyond. I noticed this site primarily because of the images that it posted of Mars and the Apollo missions, but there are a host more. There are some stunning images of the current fires in California and more topical events such as the Presidential battle between Obama and McCain. I saw the link for this first from Phil over at Bad Astronomy There are a couple of samples after the jump but go to BOSTON for the full size images.

Stuff poll stuffed with....well stuff

The lovely people over at Fairfax media ran an article over the weekend regarding creationist material being sent to schools in New Zealand, as Mr Fett alluded to in a previous post. They also ran a poll for 12 or so hours along with it and Should schools be allowed to teach 'intelligent design? was the question posed. Now, we saw some pretty feverish posting from both sides for the duration of the poll, but the final results were Yes 15479 (46.5%) and No 17814 (53.5%). I didn't realise that many people read stuff let alone cared enough to vote - WTF?

I can only suppose that after it was posted on the Pharyngula and a bunch of creationist sites that both sides of the debate went nuts with poll scripts trying to outdo each other, because over 30,000 people voting on an internet poll is pretty bizarre even for a contentious topic such as this. To give you something to compare and contrast against, here's a run down of some of the totals for other super important questions posed by Stuff "

What's your favourite season?
11264 votes and summer was the winner. Crazy I know - who'd have guessed.

Pick your worst ever cover
11103 votes. When I first read this I thought it was talking about insurance - turns out its Music Covers. Winner was Celine Dion - You Shook me all night long. I didn't even know she did a cover of that, but she would have got my vote just for the simple fact she's couldn't sing her way out of a wet paper bag.

How financially literate are you?
8048 respondents, and I must admit I have no idea what the question means. Does it mean "Can you read a bank statement?", or is it talking about the stock exchange? No idea really - winner was "somewhat" which sounds more like a question itself - Some what?

And the pièce de résistance
Will warnings about long-term use of jandals make you rethink wearing them?
Of the 8853 people who bothered answering this one, over 5000 said "No way, I love my jandals." Wow. What illuminating information. I don't know about you, but I feel changed.

These internet polls we see on so many new sites these days are much like the ones I post on this site - a load of bollocks. A majority of them either ask questions so inane it would send your caffeine and cocaine hammered druglord neighbour to sleep within seconds (How interested are you in politics? 85% say Sod off!), or are so badly worded they are not even really worth answering.

This poll about ID for instance - the question, as pointed out by Bjorn over at Pharyngula was nothing to do with the article it linked to. The article spoke about creationist material being sent to schools in an effort to get their brand of nonsense into the science class. The poll asked a different question - should it be taught? In all fairness, who am I to say what the jebus nutters teach in their churches? Its their right to teach religion in religious classes or creationism in Sunday school. I may wish they wouldn't, as its total crap, but that's their right as a religion to teach the tenets of their faith. The same goes for a science class inasmuch as only science should be discussed therein, and since ID\Creationism is not science, it has no place there.
Bjorn did point out that if he ran a class he would mention it as a "this is not science" and while I agree with his philosophy behind the argument, I probably would agree with Alison and restrict that kind of thing to the higher years of school science and university. Our standard schooling should be teaching the science framework, creating skeptical and enquiring minds, and not bombarding them with every example of bad thinking in the world.

So if I were to answer the question on its own merits, I would agree with my Bjorn Free commenter and say Yes - people should be allowed to teach it. But in the context of the article, I would say No - not in the state schools.

And my point? Internet polls are bullshit. The question can be obtuse, you can use scripts to load them (much as this one obviously did) or you can be so confused you don't answer and the results are skewed beyond all recognition. Even Stuff say "Stuff polls are not scientific and reflect the opinions of only those internet users who have chosen to participate" and that's the best description ever - they are not scientific. They are meaningless.

The problem is that this information is used by lazy ass journo's to write articles. You see them frequently now on the major news sites "according to a poll on our site last week, 42% of people want to be flogged with licorice twice a week". Or they drop the "on our site" and it becomes "according to a poll taken recently, 85% of respondents have eaten a VW Beetle".

I guess all I'm saying here is that these polls cannot be taken seriously, and we should read closely what articles say when referring to polls.

“Opinion polls measure the public's satisfaction with it's ignorance”
Unknown

"I haven't trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I've never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex."
Erma Bombeck

New Zealand not Epically Doomed, unlike Louisiana.

Phil Plait over at BadAstronomy.com has been banging the drum about creationism and evolution for a long time now and I wholeheartedly agree with everything he has to say. If schools want to teach Intelligent Design or Creationism then it should be done in the correct forum, which is not the science class. Anyway, where am I going with this? Phil Plait has done a pretty good job on this argument so I am not going to go into the specifics here.
The governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindahl, has just signed has signed a new state bill called the academic freedom bill which will allow creationism to be taught alongside evolution. Evolution of course being a Theory that can be proved by scientific means and principles, creationism cannot. And now the whackjobs in NZ are having a go as well.

The floodgates have opened. www.Stuff.co.nz in New Zealand reports that, “A Christian group promoting intelligent design over evolution has sent teaching material to schools that critics say is religious propaganda and sloppy pseudoscience.”
At least the critics have a voice. The NZ Education Ministry says:
“The unsanctioned material does not breach the Education Act and there are no plans to ban its distribution. But officials stress the theory of evolution underpins the science curriculum and schools have a responsibility to teach theories that are subject to accepted scientific scrutiny.”

A groups calling themselves “Focus on the Family” (meaning of course THEIR focus on YOUR family) sent Material to 400 high schools trying to get them to teach the hack pseudo-science in class.
Waikato University sciences senior lecturer Alison Campbell said:
“The material champions creationism - the belief that God created the world as described in the Book of Genesis - claiming the universe is too perfect to have been produced by chance so must be the work of an intelligent designer.
It represented a religious viewpoint, she said, not a scientific one, and had no place in science classrooms.”

Focus on the Family's executive director Tim Sisarich said the material was intended to expose pupils to an alterative theory of cosmology.
"We're a Christian organisation so we believe that God made the planet and God made the cosmos ... Science takes a theory and tries to establish it as the truth, and that's all this is."
Education Ministry senior manager Mary Chamberlain said parents had a right to withdraw children from religious instruction.

This is amazing. I knew that NZ had a large religious community and that is totally fine, I have no problem with that. I did not think we had the same type of minds here as in the US. I suppose we are lucky that we don't as yet seem to have those types of people in power that can make the crazy mistakes as Louisiana.

If you check the article on Stuff, you will see the standard religious morons coming out of the woodwork, making the same inane arguments. "Its just a theory", "we didn't evolve from monkeys", "teach the controversy", and "why is there no half monkey/ half human" is just a random sample of the horse shit the Committee for Lying for Jesus is posting. Always with the same crap that shows more about their lack of understanding, than their intelligence. I don't think it will ever get to the same level of stupidity that it does in America, with 40% of NZ subscribing to no religion, and another 30% subscribing to religions other than christian based ones, but its still worrying to see these knobs waving their flags every now and then.

Also interesting to see this kind of crap start surfacing just before the election, with Tim Sisarich and his cronies at the Destiny Church trying to get a seat in parliament to push their evangelical nonsense. Here's hoping come election time the same thing happens as every year, and they get laughed out of the polling booth.

Theres also a poll on the Stuff hompage about teaching ID in school. Go over there right now and give them the good news!