Something Emporium

Archived News for September 2005

• Ooo, Aaah

  Whilst browsing the usual list of blogs, webcomics and whatnot that I visit, I stumbled upon this. Kinda cool. Seems Google is everywhere. My uncle visited their offices in Silicon Valley, but it was a weekend and there was nobody there. Apparently they're relatively small.

  Speaking of the omni-potent search engine, I used it to search this guy after Tycho mentioned him on PA. Sounds like a bit of a dick, really.

  This is a bit of a rambling post, but whatever. I finally got a flat-screen monitor. The screen on my laptop went bust, so Dad hooked me up with the monitor, keyboard, mouse and wireless internet in my room. *sigh* 'Tis awesome.

  Oh yeah, and Skype is really cool.

  Alyx

  Sat, 3/9/05 – 3:29pm

• Band expelled from Smokefree event - for smoking

  source
  03.09.05 1.00pm
  
  A band made a late entry into the Smokefree Rockquest national finals in Wellington last night -- thanks to another band being disqualified for smoking.
  
  Eight Orange Orchard, an incredibly awesome ska band whose band members are students from New Plymouth Girls’ High and New Plymouth Boys’ High, were told yesterday that they had made the finals.
  
  Smoke-free Rockquest media spokesperson Jacquetta Bell said the band was selected after Wairoa College’s Koastline was caught smoking and disqualified from the competition.
  
  She said all band members had signed smoke-free declarations.
  

  robbie

  Sat, 3/9/05 – 4:05pm

• Get your groove on

  Rebirth has been retired, which means it's now a free download. Yus!

  Dominic

  Mon, 5/9/05 – 11:28pm

• Can't trust mates

  Viral marketing is the latest thing - you know, like the 'man in black' stickers that appeared for the lions tour (Adidas were behind them) and the soccer balls for the new soccer league thing. I'm going to be involved, coding-wise, in a viral marketing campaign pretty soon myself.
  
  You might have seen the 'you can't trust your mates' and 'nicepeople' ads and billboards. I've just done a bit of investigation on both - one is by Vodaphone, and the other either ALAC or LTSA. I'll post some more thoughts a bit later.
  
  A little later:

  Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.
  - Raymond Chandler

  So, ALAC. ALAC are the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand, established in 1976 to "encourage responsible use and minimise misuse [of alcohol]". They are funded out of a (albeit slight) tax on alcohol purchases.

  My problem with ALAC is that they seem to have stepped past the bounds of these original constraints – rather than "encouraging responsible use" they seem to be simply discouraging use. They are, in my opinion, an organisation that takes its roots from the temperance movement – modern day wowsers. I because that definition ('overdeveloped sense of morality') because I feel that a very particular "almost religious" morality is exactly what ALAC espouses. I've been reading a lot of their policy over the last couple of days. A lot of it is contradictory. Take for example, these passages which occur only sentences apart in their position on the use and purchase of alcohol by young people:

  There has been concern expressed by parents, agencies and the community, that the lowering of the minimum age at which alcohol can be purchased has ... made binge drinking easier.

  However,

  [T]here is research that confirms younger drinkers consume in the same way adult New Zealanders do.

  Why are the anonymous 'agencies' and the voiceless 'community' concerned? Well, because they're drinking the same way we are, dammit! Other parts of their policy are simply incorrect:

  ...there has been an increasing trend towards binge drinking for some time in this country.

  Now, let's examine this one. In 1847, 1 in every 8 Aucklanders had a criminal conviction for drunkenness. That's a huge percentage, and it must be remembered that drunkenness in 1847 was considerably more consumption than the 3 standard drinks per day prescribed by ALAC. In 1861 there were 6 seperate breweries in Canterbury, serving only 15,000 settlers. In addition to this each of these 15,000 drank an annual total of 3 gallons of imported spirits, 7 of imported beer and 2 of wine. By comparision, the annual per capita consumption 1988 was 0.4 gallons of spirits, 24.5 gallons of beer and 1 of wine. The more complicated statistics for modern consumption, when converted, work out to around 0.6 gallons of spirits (and fortified wine), 19 gallons of beer (and equivalent RTDs) and 4.5 gallons of wine.

  Let's do some mathematical analysis of this one:

  • A 'standard drink' is 12.7mL of alcohol - about 35mL of spirits, 250mL of beer and 100mL of wine according to ALACs own figures.
  • An imperial gallon is 4546mL

  This works out to be about:

  • 1847: 763 standard drinks per year, plus whatever they could make themselves
  • 1988: 563 standard drinks per year
  • 2004: 659 standard drinks per year

  Now, according to these figures, the average person would pretty much have to drink two drinks a day, day after day to avoid 'binging'. Given that in 1995 it was established that the median frequency of drinking was about once every two to three days we can arrive at the conclusion that the majority of people are dirty filty stinking binge drinkers according to ALAC's figures. The quick will see that I've actually assumed the average consumption is fairly close to the median, but I hold that to be true. Here's a more accurate statement of the situation from Stats NZ:

  "The total volume of alcoholic beverages available for consumption decreased over the 1990–2000 period by 3 percent to 418.5 million litres in the year ending June 2000. However, the total volume of absolute alcohol available for consumption increased by 1 percent, to 26.3 million litres, during this 10-year period."

  So, how is it again that we should be worried when drinking has increased by only a single percent in the last ten years, and has decreased a sizeable amount in the last hundred? Ok, so, overall my point is that New Zealand has always had a history of drinking, and I don't think it's anything much to be worried about. And just as New Zealand has always had a history of drinking, we've had a history of people and organisations who have, for their own questions of morality, frowned upon it. Captain Thomas MacDonnell became our second British Resident in 1835 and promptly set up an association to forbid the sale of liquor. Needless to say, it was a rediculously useless gesture at a time before New Zealand was even a country.

  In the end no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society, and we shouldn't pretend it does.

  Dominic

  Thu, 8/9/05 – 4:52pm

• Cryptical?

  So I've just finished Digital Fortress, by Dan Brown for like the third time. Cryptogrophy and whatnot. Thought I'd try out one of the algorithms they use. Its used in the Da Vinci Code as well. See how you go:
  

  ytsocoehtronaiiamthnmniyikeecotifwdu

  First one to crack it may or may not win a prize.

  Alyx

  Tue, 13/9/05 – 9:19pm

• Surely there's nothing wrong with a little showing off?

  So anyway, after spending three months in (boring) Adelaide, I've spent the last 9 days at home working on this (scroll down to the bottom of the page for the latest pics), and this (actually this but who's counting). I'm pretty happy with how it's all turning out at the moment - let me know what you think.

  funkymunky

  Tue, 13/9/05 – 10:34pm

• The best a man can get

  This is the single biggest piece of news you will hear all week. They're doing five! They're actually doing five! Holy shit, they're doing FIVE!
  
  As predicted by The Onion 18 months ago.

  Dominic

  Thu, 15/9/05 – 11:53pm

• Next-Gen Gaming

  I thought this looked interesting. Although I KNOW it's going to take the issue of losing the remote to a totally new level.

  Andrew

  Sat, 17/9/05 – 1:21pm

• The Man Who Invented Tomorrow

  Every year I search for an essay I once read. I think it may have been by Freeman Dyson, but I can't find anything by him in print and there's not much of his work online. Someone had gone to the trouble of typing the whole essay out. It contrasted H G Wells' thoughts on the future of humanity at the end of the Boer War

  All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.

  with a poem written at the nuclear end of World War Two, by Robinson Jeffers

  The human race / is bound to defile. / I've often noticed it. / Whatever / they can reach / or name, they'd shit / on the morning star / if they could reach... / A day will come / when the earth / will scratch herself / and smile / and rub off humanity.

  What's different about my search this year is that I happened to find EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK - THE MEDITATION ROOM!

  As you continue to breathe, you will feel this wellspring of love begin to fill you and spill over until you are washed, wave upon wave, with eternal bliss.

  That rainbow background is just, like, so relaxing. I can totally feel the 'wellspring of love' washing me. Sick.
  
  But seriously, which of the two writers had it right? Optimism or pessimism? Will the human race be around in another few million years? Can you think of the conclusion Dyson arrived at concerning the two authors? Can you find the original essay? Does anyone care? Anyone want to share their own vision of the distant future? Can I stop asking questions? Yes?

  Dominic

  Wed, 21/9/05 – 9:27pm

• Yeah!!!! Whoo!!! Yaahh!!!!!

  I got a Reel Big Fish pick!

  I would scan it but I can't be fucked at this time of night. It says "Reel Big Fish" on the front and "Don't start a band" on the back.

  Maybe I should make a pick that says "Too late" on the front and "Already did" on the back and send it to them.

  robbie

  Thu, 29/9/05 – 1:15am

Menu