Yip Yip Y'all

I wish more rap concerts were like this.

WANT!

One awesome thing about expecting a child is the ability to buy silly things that you'd otherwise have to stop and think about.

Case in point - WANT!

Go Home on Time Day

We can all find it tricky to leave the office or finish work on time. That's why this November 25th is national Go Home on Time Day. It's your opportunity to postpone all those "one last thing" tasks, emails and late meetings, and leave work on time for a change. What you do next is up to you!

The latest research from The Australia Institute finds that Australians work more than 2 billion hours of unpaid overtime every year! Around half of all employees work more hours than they are paid for. On average, a typical employee works 49 minutes of unpaid overtime per day. For full-time workers, the average daily amount of unpaid work takes more than one hour.

Overwork can have negative consequences for your physical and mental health, your relationships with loved ones and your sense of what is important in life.

Go Home On Time Day is an initiative of The Australia Institute, the country's most influential progressive think tank. Based in Canberra, it conducts research on a broad range of economic, social and environmental issues in order to inform public debate and bring greater accountability to the democratic process.

To show your support and get your personalised leave pass and reminder, visit the Go Home on Time Day website.

First published on GreensBlog

Baby Einstein founded on 'mothers instinct' not research

I've never really trusted the idea of Baby Einstein (those baby learning products that purport to increase your child's intelligence), so reading this post on BoingBoing just seems to affirm that stance:

As a young entrepreneur years ago, I found this interview with Julie Aigner-Clark (founder of Baby Einstein, who sold her $20 million enterprise to Disney in 2001) to be pretty inspiring, but it's turned funny in light of last week's news about the big Baby Einstein refund -- what The New York Times says is "a tacit admission that [Baby Einstein products] did not increase infant intellect." No kidding. Here's a bit of that old Aigner-Clark interview:

"I didn't have a video background, but my husband and I borrowed video equipment and started to shoot scenes on a tabletop in my basement. I put a puppet on my hand and plopped my cat down in front of the camera. My husband and I used our home computer to edit our first video... Everything I did in the first videos was based on my experience as a mom. I didn't do any research. I knew my baby. I knew what she liked to look at. I assumed that what my baby liked to look at, most other babies would, too."

It's pretty clear that Baby Einstein was not rooted in cognitive research as they had boldly claimed and many parents believed. Worse yet, scientists at the University of Washington concluded that these videos actually hindered language development in infants. Lucky for me, I came across the interview before I my daughter was born so every time a friend offered us hand-me-down Baby Einstein products, I would immediately picture this woman wagging puppets in front of a Handycam in her basement and would politely decline.

Lord of the Fries

My first (hopefully of many) submissions to Tanks A Lot: Lord of the Fries.

I LOLed

The truth about Disney's princesses

via socimages

350 action at Green New Deal Conference

On 24 October, people in 181 countries came together for the most widespread day of environmental action in the planet's history. At over 5200 events around the world, people gathered to call for strong action and bold leadership on the climate crisis.

Attendees of the Green New Deal Conference in Melbourne joined in to spell out '350' on the roof of the Economics & Commerce Building of Melbourne University.

Check out other pics of 350 events held in Australia & NZ, and around the globe.

First published on GreensBlog

The history of hiphop. Britishafied.

Well now, this is fun. Considering one of my favourite songs is The Gourds' version of Snoop Dogg's 'Gin & Juice', this guy does do a very insightful history lesson through the world of hip hop. He's also very good on that banjolele.

Giant seagull!

I know - it's old news now, but goddamn - that's some funny shit!

WANT!

Best armed forces ad ever!

Join the Taiwanese Armed Forces - become a motherfucking Transformer!

CO2 filling station

These boxes are attached the the wall in the underground carpark at Northlands Shopping Centre.

WTF? What the hell needs filling up with CO2? In a supermarket carpark? EXPLAIN!

The Cove in Japan

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, The Cove follows a high-tech dive team on a mission to discover the truth about the international dolphin capture trade as practiced in Taiji, Japan. Utilizing state-of-the-art techniques, including hidden microphones and cameras in fake rocks, the team uncovers how this small seaside village serves as a horrifying microcosm of massive ecological crimes happening worldwide.

There's a great post about The Cove's premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival here:

TIFF initially refused to include The Cove in its green "Action for the Earth!" themed 2009 festival because of its "sensitive" (i.e., blood-drenched, Japan-critical) nature, but persistent interventions by Cove supporter Ben Stiller, TIFF jury president Alejandro González Iñárritu, and other free speech advocates pressured organizers to relent and include it the line-up.

Inside the "sold out" theater TIFF had miraculously discovered a row of empty seats that was now filled with Taiji officials, including Mayor Sangen, "Private Space" and several Fishery Agency suits. When the film ended and audience broke into applause, Mayor Sangen and his entourage trooped out scowling before Louie appeared and the Q&A began.

Louie spoke for a few minutes explaining his motivations and hopes for the film, and admitting to nervousness at standing for the first time before a quintessentially "non-chorus" crowd. He handled the expected "traditional food culture" questions deftly by noting his mother was older than this particular dolphin-killing "tradition" and also responded thoughtfully to queries over why the film seemed to veer from an animal rights appeal to a mercury focused public health alarm.

First published on GreensBlog

Epic disability sensitivity fail

via FailBlog

Best Halloween costume ever

Seriously, this is the best costume ever. Not scary, unless you have a phobia of citrus and/or cats. The correct name for a fear of cats is Ailurophobia, and a fear of sour things is Acerophobia, so I would say combining the two would be Ailacerophobia.

For those not in the know of the interwebs, here is the original:

Oh, don't be so ailacerophobic.

Windows 7 Whopper

Move over Super Scooby Burger, and forget all about the McGangBang or the Double Down - this shit is whack.

To promote the release of Windows 7, Burger King Japan is selling the Windows 7 Whopper. What does the 7 symbolise? It's the number of meat patties stuffed into an otherwise normal Whopper - bringing it to a truly towering 13 centimetres.

Yeah, because that's remotely practical, let alone healthy, safe or even potentially possible to actually eat. And the obvious relationship between excessive meat and an evil computer operating system? Awesome.

iWatch the a-rabs

Jesus. This is no joke.

The US Government are actively encouraging their citizens to spy on family, friends and neighbours. I'm glad they point out that you should "let law enforcement determine if it's a threat." Yeah, wouldn't want anyone going on a vigilante spree after you've told them it's ok to spy and rat on your next door neighbour.

Not for the first time, I'm glad I'm not American.

War Veteran makes it simple on gay marriage

This made me cry a bit.

An 86-year-old WWII veteran got up to speak at a public meeting about the state of Maine's marriage equality bill.

The best quote:

"The woman at my polling place asked me: do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: what do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?"

LHC FROM THE FUTURE!

This. Is. Friggin'. Awesome!

Scientists claim the giant atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being jinxed from the future to save the world.

In a bizarre sci-fi theory, Danish physicist Dr Holger Bech Nielsen and Dr Masao Ninomiya from Japan claim the LHC startup has been delayed due to nature trying to prevent it from finding the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle".

They say their maths proves that nature will "ripple backward through time" to stop the LHC before it can create the God particle, like a time traveller who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

I knew it! And look - I've found the proof. Does that car look familiar to anyone? Sitting right next to the Globe of Innovation at CERN? That's right - Marty is not far away.

The world isn't that bad

Awwwwww... this is nice - a note left on someone's car.

Text reads:

You left your lights on, but also your passenger door unlocked.
I turned your lights off, locked your door, and didn't steal anything.
Hope it brightens your day to know that the whole world isn't full of dishonest people.
Cheers,
Will

Federated Group Commercials

Best. Ads. Ever.

via Laughing Squid

WANT!

American 18-month-old Savannah cat Magic holds the Guinness world record for the tallest domesticated cat in the world.
She is 17.1 inches (43.43 cm) from shoulder to toe.
And now she is also awaiting the result of a second nomination as the longest (tip of the nose to tip of the tail) domestic cat.

Paris, I order you to buy this cat. Then I will visit. Lots.

via BuzzFeed

Simple instructions for use of Comics Sans.

Newsflash: Ireland bans GM

Ireland will ban growing of GM crops, and a voluntary GM-free label can be placed on all animal products (such as meat, poultry, eggs, fish, crustaceans, and dairy) that are raised with GM-free feed, according to a GM-Free Ireland press release. Ireland joins Japan and Egypt as one of the few but growing number of countries that have banned the cultivation of GM crops.

GM-Free Ireland Co-ordinator, Michael O'Callaghan:

"The WTO's economic globalization agenda has forced most Irish farmers to enter an unwinnable race to the bottom for low quality GM-fed meat and dairy produce, in competition with countries like the USA, Argentina and Brazil which can easily out-compete us with their highly subsidized GM crop monocultures, cheap fossil fuel, extensive use of toxic agrochemicals that are not up to EU standards, and underpaid migrant farm labor.

The Irish Government plan to ban GM crops and to provide a voluntary GM-free label for qualifying animal produce makes obvious business sense for our agri-food and eco-tourism sectors. Everyone knows that US and EU consumers, food brands and retailers want safe GM-free food, and Ireland is ideally positioned to deliver the safest, most credible GM-free food brand in Europe, if not the world."

This is good news for Irish farmers, and also good news for the expanded market outside Ireland - the U.S.A. imports large amounts of Irish dairy products. Now if only we could see the same kind of bipartisan strong action here in Australia...

story via Treehugger

First published on GreensBlog

Pasta shapes directory

Behold - the encyclopaedia of pasta shapes.

Most interestingly, this includes a shape known as Marille, which is unusual in that a) it's a recent shape, b) its designer is known, and c) it is no longer available. Marille's designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, previously had designed some of the most distinctive cars in the world and in 1999 was named Car Designer of the Century.

I like it - it's got a modern deco feel, but I fear that it would just fold over and collapse once cooked. We'll never know now...

via Kottke

X-rated Disney beer

What on earth made them think this wasn't going to attract the Disney legal hounds!?

An Australian beer advertisement has reportedly ticked off Disney because it features a Snow White lookalike lying in bed blowing smoke rings with seven undressed dwarves. The ad campaign for Jamieson Brewery's Raspberry Ale was created by the Australian advertising agency The Foundry to promote the beer as "anything but sweet" with a maiden they call "Ho White" and seven dwarves.

The official Web site, anythingbutsweet.com.au, can no longer be accessed. The Foundry's Web site reportedly featured pictures of "Ho White" earlier this week but no longer does.

Yeah, because Disney is an easy target - they never protect their copyright...

via Slashfood

Facing up to climate change

Lobbyists for the big polluters are crawling the halls of Parliament every day, but ordinary voters haven't had the same access or influence. Until now.

The Rudd Government was elected with a mandate to face up to climate change. Yet the legislation they've created locks in climate failure. It currently promises $16 billion to polluters, penalises ordinary Australians for reducing their emissions and sets pollution reduction targets way too low to stop climate change: just 5% by 2020.

The Greens Senators are facing up to climate change with the Safe Climate Bill. Now it's your turn - how will you face up?

The Government's CPRS Bill already failed once, and it's up for a re-vote in November.

Right now the fossil fuel industry lobbyists are the ones with the access and influence to be seen. We want to change that. After all, the Rudd government works for you, not the polluters, and they need your vote come election time next year!

Upload your photo at www.faceup.org.au to take a stand for climate action that counts. We will take the photos and messages from your electorate and personally deliver them to your local MP and the Prime Minister as a greeting card and CD.

It's time to put your face directly in front of the Prime Minister and your local MP.

Upload your photo to tell Kevin Rudd and his MPs that they work for you, not the big polluters, and you've given him a mandate to actually tackle the climate crisis, not lock in failure.

First published on GreensBlog

TARDIS cake

OMG! EPIC WANT!

Barbara Jo made a TARDIS cake. A complete TARDIS. With working lights, and yes - it's bigger on the inside!!!

Seriously, read the full story - intense!

New Spider Bots

Oh. My. God.

So, internal surveillance surgery not creepy enough for you? How about we mix it up a bit by adding a MINI ROBOTIC SPIDER!

A new remote-controlled spider bot can scuttle around inside the colon or intestine and perform a medical inspection instead. Once finished with its exploration, the device exits the body "naturally."

All together now... EW!

via PopSci

Yellow Cake

Woah. Yellow Cake by Nick Cross. Keep watching it - the social and moral value hits you like a tonne of bricks. In a good way.

via A.W. Comix

Regretsy

Now, I love Etsy. It's awesome to see so many people out there making creative, cool things and hocking them for just enough to make a profit. Especially the art - we've got a few Etsy pieces framed around the house. They're not great works of art, just cute prints, simple photos or other things that just look nice.

But I've never really spent a lot of time looking around Etsy enough to see the best of the worst. Regretsy is here to solve that.

via Courteney

Launching the Safe Climate Bill

Today, the Greens launch our Safe Climate Bill - our legislative answer to the climate problem. Christine & Bob will be revealing all at Parliament House in Canberra later today, but we're not leaving out those that can't be there. We've already sent out our call for people to be involved in a phone-in exclusive briefing with Christine straight after the launch, and those that were lucky enough to gain a spot should have those details very shortly.

Now, we're asking YOU what you want to know. Put your comments, questions or queries in the comments here and we'll make every effort to address them all.

Christine's briefing starts at 12:45 - we'll put the video up here as soon as possible afterwards. We'll also be putting up everything you need to know about the bills at www.safeclimatebill.org.au so keep an eye on that.

First published on GreensBlog

Stephen Fry - you are more my hero today

This is truly beautiful. Letters of Note have a sweet letter written from Stephen Fry to a women suffering from depression.

As a vocal advocate of the need for mental health and depression awareness, Stephen is honest about his inability to directly help her, whilst truly empathising with her situation. When someone reached out to him for help, he responded with a realness that is, quite frankly, rare in celebrity worlds.

He was already on my hero list, but after reading this, he's gone up a notch.

The letter reads:

April 10, 2006

Dear Crystal,

I'm so sorry to hear that life is getting you down at the moment. Goodness knows, it can be so tough when nothing seems to fit and little seems to be fulfilling. I'm not sure there's any specific advice I can give that will help bring life back its savour. Although they mean well, it's sometimes quite galling to be reminded how much people love you when you don't love yourself that much.

I've found that it's of some help to think of one's moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather:

Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It's real.
You can't change it by wishing it away.
If it's dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can't alter it.
It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.

BUT

It will be sunny one day.
It isn't under one's control as to when the sun comes out, but come out it will.
One day.

It really is the same with one's moods, I think. The wrong approach is to believe that they are illusions. They are real. Depression, anxiety, listlessness - these are as real as the weather - AND EQUALLY NOT UNDER ONE'S CONTROL. Not one's fault.

BUT

They will pass: they really will.

In the same way that one has to accept the weather, so one has to accept how one feels about life sometimes. "Today's a crap day," is a perfectly realistic approach. It's all about finding a kind of mental umbrella. "Hey-ho, it's raining inside: it isn't my fault and there's nothing I can do about it, but sit it out. But the sun may well come out tomorrow and when it does, I shall take full advantage."

I don't know if any of that is of any use: it may not seem it, and if so, I'm sorry. I just thought I'd drop you a line to wish you well in your search to find a little more pleasure and purpose in life.

Very best wishes

(Signed)

Stephen Fry

Punny punny shops

Tanks a lot is a great website, focussing right down to the important things in life - shop name puns. Like this Vietnamese restaurant in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada: Pho Shizzle. Don't believe them? Check out the website.

Advertising should really just be banned altogether

OMG! RUN! THERE'S A MOTHERFUCKING GOD STORM COMING! GOD WILL SMITE YOU DOWN FOR LOVING SOMEONE OF YOUR OWN SEX!!!!!!!!

The Huffington Post has a playlist of all the anti-gay marriage ads that have aired in the US recently, most in relation to Proposition 8.

Naturally, most are downright offensive, but it's also fascinating to see the manipulative way these organisations will get around the obvious anti-gay message. "We don't need to confuse the issue." "Our kids can't even understand divorce - how are they going to understand gay attraction?" "This is about choice - by giving gays the right to marry, you're taking away my choice." That last one is a kicker.

I guess the scariest thing I always find when I watch this shit is the realisation that I am in a minority lefty section of the world. Last night, I had to sit in a crowded theatre at Fringe Festival, listening to a comedian (whose name now escapes me) do an entire routine based on the premise that it was funny that all men will freak out at the thought of a cock in a man's arse. That was it - that was the joke.

Why is that funny? Is it funny because of the ironic homophobia implied? No - it's funny because all men should be afraid of that image. It's wrong and something to be frightened and uncomfortable about. I genuinely had to look around the room at the people laughing, so see what kind of bigoted arseholes were in attendance. A lot, apparently.

I'm all for offensive humour. I'm all for horribly uncomfortable ironic satire. But when a white middle class man with an Australian country town twang in his voice tries to relate to you with stories of his own inherent homophobia, I'd just rather that someone glass them. It's the cultural equivalent of a bunch of Germans jumping up on stage and cracking jokes about the Holocaust (see Comedy Festival 2009).

Bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, class-warfare, religious or cultural persecution - they can only be funny when the intention of satire is clear. When it's not, you should just fuck off back to your slab of VB, turn the footy on and beat your own wife in the privacy of your own trailer-park.

The most worrying thing - this was a line-up currated and organised by Daniel Kitson, who I do genuinely like. To introduce this guy as having 'some of the funniest material of the festival' makes me very concerned for a great comedian's judgement.

The Beatles do the PS3... from beyond the grave.... ooooeerrr

This is beautiful - the Beatles Rockband outro video.

I do like a bit of Rockband, but not enough to warrant purchasing the PS3, drum kit, guitar, bass guitar or microphone necessary to play it. So I guess I'm actually saying that unless it's right in front of me at a friends place, I don't care about it.

But the new Beatles version peaked my interest. Now that I've actually seen the graphics that went into it, I like. It only makes me sad that George never lived to fully appreciate the state that computer animation and manipulation has progressed to - with the right graphic effects studio behind him, he might not have needed quite so many hallucinogens. But then again, it's probably a chicken and egg thing. Check out the video of giant poppy flowers sprouting across London while the Fab Four have a tea party on a giant elephant. Yeah - you know what I'm talking about.

BoingBoing has a full list of the video cut scenes, graphic art and other pretty things involved.

Svedish stair fun

Hehe - how fun is this?

A train station in Odenplan plaza, Stockholm, got a piano makeover on its main steps. 66% more commuters than normal were then observed to take the stairs rather than the adjacent escalator.

All because they want to be Tom Hanks in Big. It's like, so obvious. Sure, it's all an ad for Volkswagen, but it's still cool.

via Neatorama

So totally cool as ice...

HOW HAVE I MISSED THE EXISTENCE OF THIS MOVIE!?!?!?

Cool as Ice - starring Vanilla Ice!

WANT!

The Death of PhotoShop

Not sure if I entirely believe that this is real - it has all the hallmarks of a net fraud.

PhotoSketch allows you to sketch out (in stick figure format) what you want in a picture. The system then uses various internet image search engines to return components of the image, etch them out, colour correct and paste together in the composition you've requested.

Check out the paper or video for details. If true, my days as a dodgy PhotoShop-paster-of-heads-on-other-peoples-bodies-extraordinaire are numbered.

via Kottke

Four year old Finnish rappers

Hehehe - this is cool. The video clip for the song Yöjuna Rovaniemelle by Finnish band Ella ja Aleksi features two four-year-old rappers.

The graphics in this clip are so cute. I especially love the walrus conductor who punches train tickets with his teeth. Hehehe

via BoingBoing

Too much tea?

I do love a spot of tea. So much so that our tea collection has grown over the years to be quite substantial. I did a tally today, just to see what we have (and what we might need).

In the black tea corner, we have:
Irish Breakfast
Organic English Breakfast
Evening Blend
Queen Anne
Aussie Blend
Earl Grey
Brisbane Breakfast
Melbourne Breakfast
Creme Brulee
Morning Red
Her Majesty's Blend
English Luncheon
Afternoon Blend
Assam Thanai
East Frisian
Formosan Oolong
Western Highlands

In the green corner:
Gunpowder Green
Soba Seed Green
Chai Green
Marrakech Mix
Organic Ceylon Green

In the hippy corner:
Fluffy Chai
Fruit Blend
Sinus Blend
Chai
Rooibos
Lemongrass & Ginger
Mint Mix
Liquorice
Blackcurrant
Honey Bush
Chamomile
White Tea

And in the Asian corner:
China Jasmine
Iron Goddess
Dragon Pearls
Matcha Kirara Rice
Jasmin Pearl
Buddha's Tears

Woah. Tea.

Disapproving Rabbits

I really should be over these single-serving websites... nah.

DisapprovingRabbits.com : All disapproval, all the time.

Love it.

Think ThinkPad

Being a long-time Mac convert, I'm really not that into PC's anymore. However, do love this - the inspiration for the IBM range of ThinkPad laptops.

It's a leather-bound writing pad officially given out by IBM since the 1920's - embossed with the word 'THINK' on the cover.

I can just imagine someone in the IBM marketing department in the late 1980's racking their brains late at night for a name for their new range of laptops. Rummaging through a drawer, they come across this pad and think "yeah, it'll do."

via Kottke

Anyone Can Be Cool, But Awesome Takes Practice

Awful Library Books delivers up yet another great lesson in why publishers should have to pass an IQ test before being allowed within 10 feet of a printing press: Anyone Can Be Cool, But Awesome Takes Practice.

One in a series of Devotionals for Teens, this creepy God-loving instructional book shows teens how to:

• Discover what God says about each one of them.
• Focus on biblical truths that free people to express their true personalities.
• Be strong to stand up to the constant lies from Satan regarding inferiority, lack of self-acceptance and peer pressure.
• Become the unique and beautifully designed person God has created to reflect Jesus Christ to the world.
• Apply the power of their faith and value in Christ to the issues facing them at school, at work, with friends and family.
  

Made even more awesome by this recommendation on Amazon:

“For years, I struggled with meager coolness until I read this book. Now with my new-found knowledge and my “I am awesome” shirt, all the ladies want to get with me. It may look like they’re just laughing and pointing, but I know that they truly find me irresistible. Since I’ve modeled my hair and clothes from the book cover, everyone thinks I’m Zack from Saved by the Bell. It just doesn’t get anymore awesome than that. Oh yeah.” -Aaron T. Bagby

Junk mail education program

Love this one - this small, sixteen-page pamphlet is produced to put inside the postage-paid, business-reply envelopes that come with junk mail offers. Every envelope collected is stuffed with the pamphlet and mailed back to its original company.

I particularly like the morale being taught here - rebel in your workplace, riot and destroy. Repopulated and you will live in a utopian hunter-gatherer society. Hopefully that message gets through loud and clear to all those credit card and insurance companies.

via BoingBoing

Graph Out Loud

OMG! A sneak peek of the new Graph Out Loud book from GraphJam, and it just happens to be all about Back to the Future!
October 6, hurry up and get here!

British top of the fat bastards

Hold the phone. All previous attempts to find the most disgustingly fattening foods can just bugger off.

Behold - the Super Scooby burger, hailing from Old Blighty. It contains four beef burgers, eight rashers of bacon, eight slices of cheese, 12 onion rings, salad and three sauces. Coming in at a total of 2,645 calories, it weighs 1.5kg.

Well done, Britain. In the fight to wrestle global control back from the USA, you've successfully adopted their eating habits.