September 2011 Monthly Archives

Science Knowledge, YouTube

Carl Sagan, neil degrasse tyson, science, YouTube

The vile power of anonymity

I don’t agree with everyone online. I am also strongly opinionated. We will pause for collective gasps of shock. Ok, over that? Good.

Does my disagreement with them give me the right to abuse, stalk, harass them? Obsess over every grotty little detail I can pathetically seek to find, like a creepy stalker?

The fact I think Fred Phelps is creepy dangerous does not give me the right to provide him unsolicited abuse, (unlike his vile practices, that he has, in my occasionally humble opinion, brainwashed his near cult into emulating).

Anonymity (the relative anonymity, at least), that being online bestows on us, seems to remove basic lessons in human social skills. The ability to use good manners. To reflect on potential pain. The fact that the person you spit your vitriol at is actually a fellow human, not a series of electrons after all. There are people who make mistakes, who have other opinions, who are actually still stumbling around through life like the rest of us.

I love the benefits the Internet brings. It can build amazing communities for the lonely, and empower the disenfranchised, educate those with limited access to knowledge. It is a deeply powerful tool. Like all tools, it is two edged and dangerous when wielded by those who have underlying agendas. I am sickened by this descent into abusive hostility when faced with disagreement – the argument of the playground, the kindergarten.

I often wonder if people who behave so badly are role playing out their responses to times of being bullied, or feeling powerless, of adolescent sufferings. For adolescent cruelty is deeply apparent in such responses. The cruelty of thoughtless high school students.

I hope we evolve better mechanisms, and start to enforce better behaviour by our lack of accepting such rudeness and hostility.

I f you can read this tale, (Mom, Don’t Read This – Skepchick), and not feel outraged – no matter how much or little you agree with where the tale started - then please, examine the basic set of human rules for interaction we should all have been educated with, instantly.

Lorraine Devon Wilke: I Know You Are but What Am I?! The Snark Epidemic in Modern Media Discourse (huffingtonpost.com)
Cyber bullies are vile, but should we be locking them up? (guardian.co.uk)

Internet Technology, Social Philosophy

I’m Under Arrest for What? Fifty Bizarre U.S. Laws – DivineCaroline.

Abuse, Anonymity, Internet

Fifty Bizarre U.S. Laws

I am struggling to pick a favourite – they all delight me so!

Funny, Politics Rights

via The fat of the land – The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

america, humour, laws, usa

Digesting the fat of the land (via The Drum)

Frugality vs conspicuous consumerism, the hav it all now mentality that certainly is a porton, way upgraded to large portion, of obesity crises in western countries…

In Australia and just about every other country in the world the proportion of overweight and obese people increases year-on-year. Sixty-seven per cent of Aussies are overweight as are 74 per cent of Americans. The one ray of light in this is that the New Zealanders have managed to trump us with 68 per cent – it’s good to hear the fat hobbits across the Tasman Sea can beat us in something other than Rugby, but still, we’re all getting too large.

Not only are we eating more meat, our food portions generally are expanding in size. In the US 20 years ago, the average cheeseburger had 330 calories, now the average is 590; the average portion of spaghetti contained 500 calories, now it comes in at 1020; and a can of fizzy drink had an average of 82 calories, now it has ballooned out to 250. Now, none of us were starving 20 years ago, but a hell of a lot of us weighed a lot less. Added to this we are chucking food out at a rate never before seen – in Australia we throw away 5.2 billion dollars worth of food each year, including 1.1 billion of fresh fruit and vegetables. That’s around 600 dollars per household. There are charities popping up around Australia now whose sole purpose is to take the food we want to throw away and give it to hungry families.

So we’re getting fatter and fatter, eating more and more, and to top it all off we are throwing tonnes of it away. Six hundred dollars worth per household thrown into landfill – think about that. You know what is going to cost that much? The carbon tax. Actually, it’ll cost a bit less – around 500 per household. And that is putting aside the Treasury estimates that show nearly 70 per cent of Australians will be fully compensated.

Environment, Meanderings, Politics Rights, Science Knowledge, Social Philosophy

consumerism, culture, first world problems, frugality, obesity, Poverty

The vast smallness of us…

September 29, 2011

Meanderings, Science Knowledge, YouTube

via Customer complaint email and response by GASP clothing goes viral | Herald Sun.

astronomy, science, Space, YouTube

Customer complaint email and response by GASP clothing goes viral

These people have no idea of the hellish mess they have gotten themselves into. They deserve it. Oh , they are so exclusive are they? Well, I think they are probably going to find themselves too exclusive to have customers at this rate.

GASP clothing has defended its position involving a customer dispute, releasing yet another jaw-dropping response.

The statement came after a spat between the retailer and a customer, who was told that their clothes were too exclusive for her, turned into a viral email sensation.

September 29, 2011

Blogging, Events, Funny, Twitter

The Island of the Immortals by Ursula K. Le Guin | Lightspeed Magazine.

funny, idiots, Internet, Twitter, viral

Short story by Ursula K. Le Guin via Lightspeed Mag

I had forgotten how POWERFUL Le Guin’s writing is. Before I knew it, I was walking, breathless and frightened, wondering about flies…

A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire

I’ll tell you what I think. The comic authors may have no real women friends. Or they think their readers don’t. And they have little respect for women – even if they have convinced themselves otherwise. Why? Read the article. I agree with a wise kid:)

Fantasy author Michele Lee has the most eloquent response so far to DC Comics’ “sexed up” version of Starfire, the voluptuous alien member of the Teen Titans. Instead of ranting about the changes herself, Lee asked her seven-year-old daughter what she thought. The results are thought-provoking.

via A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire.

The secret numerology behind the iPhone event invitation | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog

It’s been announced.

Invitations to Apple’s iPhone event on October 4th have been sent out, and we asked famed numerology expert Helmut Weltschmertz (see photo at right) of the Koblenz Institute of Numerology and Used Car Sales to tell us exactly what the numbers and symbols on the invitation meant. Here’s what Dr. Weltschmertz was able to surmise for TUAW:

via The secret numerology behind the iPhone event invitation | TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

Oh, this made me snigger.

September 28, 2011

Apple, iPad/iPhone, Tech