TRISTAN

Maths and insanity

2010-12-02T01:37:00.002+10:30

This is a concept drawn' for the book I am slowly working on (click the image for a better look). The final should be somewhat journal-like, telling a story about somebody who starts having strange images and concepts jammed into their brain like a torpedo of junk mail being hammered into a letter box. The human in the story will provide their interpretation of the signal, and in doing so, will introduce some neat ideas about mathematics.

There is some detailed stuff written elsewhere about this project, see this page, and also this blog post, which probably links to this gallery, too.

MOST IMPORTANTLY, ENJOY YOUR DAY

Electric Blue

2010-11-16T04:10:00.001+10:30

This is based on a painting I am solely implicated in the creation of in 2000 AD, called 'Blue on Blue.'
That painting was specifically created for a dear friend of mine, and has been in their possession ever since. I wouldn't have it any other way; it is theirs to display, modify or destroy as they see fit!

Any number of hilarious fates could have befallen it by now; the last time I saw it was early in the century. This is only a little upsetting because B.O.B. was one of my favourite crappy attempts at 'Art'...for me it only exists in a recently-taken grainy mobile phone photo of a photo of it alongside a number of other crappy paintings I did in 2000 AD, and also in the form of memories stored under 'difficulty with blue paints' in the back corner of my brain. Now I have finally used that grainy photo to create a derivative work - in 24 hours or less! The original lurks in the foreground of its "spiritual suck-cessor" as a "testament to the power of the imagination, and the limited conduits through which it leaks into the so-called 'real world'" - or more likely, as a visually interesting and totally self-indulgent tribute.

I hope you enjoy this fine example of exhaustion art!

Strange Transmissions

2009-06-20T13:14:00.004+09:30

I've been receiving some strange transmissions lately - a series of patterns, schematics and vistas of alien worlds. I seem to be the only one receiving these images; NASA, the CIA, ASIO, the ADF and the PLA seem to know nothing about it! So now I have a project to work on: accumulating and cataloging these things so that everybody can see what I'm seeing.

The gradually-expanding catalogue can be found here.

For all of you non-believers, I've set up a mundane, perfectly reasonable 'cover story' over at mindcloud.org. This is where to go if you want to hear my 'explanation' of 'what I am doing' 'here'. It's really just a condensed version of my interpretation of the images I've been receiving, so it may 'spoil' some of the mystery for you, or unfairly influence your interpretations. You've been warned!

For an education that kicks...

2009-06-01T23:05:00.001+09:30

Commentary

This advertisement is silly! It says nothing about the university at all, unless they've got degrees in fashion engineering nowadays...
What does such a shoe have to do with Flinders University? You could hardly walk (especially around mountainous Flinders), let alone kick anything, in that shoe! The advertisement should read, "For an education that is impractical and uncomfortable..."
First they switch to a very conservative, beige colour scheme in 2008, now, in 2009, they're out with the crazy stilettos! Is there some kind of internal struggle going on in the marketing division?

Rating

POORNESS FACTOR 6/10

This advertisement doesn't offend the intellect so much...it is just ridiculously bush-league and reeks of forgotten deadlines! Somebody threw together some clip-art, some words and added a neat shadow and thought "that'll do!" Unfortunately it did - and now it graces "Bob" knows how many bus shelters. It's pedestrian-grade annoyingness, only slightly less so than this website.

-----------------------------------------

Advertising has long been famous for being idiotic, but I've been noticing some disturbing trends in the world around me lately. One is the general lack of thought put into the advertisements: this can result in anything from silly incongruity like in the image above, to incredible racism and sexism. It may just be that I notice it more these days, but I wonder if there is a feedback loop here.

If advertisements, plastered all over every surface and transmitted into our homes via TV, can change people's ideas about 'what goes', then this thoughtlessness should increase over time. The standards of the community are only modified by advertisements that slightly push the envelope of what is acceptable - an advertisement that completely offends will be quickly censored. There is a tendency to push this envelope in order to elicit emotional responses like shock, in order to get the attention of the audience. Eventually, all advertisers are pushing that envelope the same amount for long enough that the wider population are no longer shocked.

Not only does this mean that the advertisements can be a little more shocking next time, it also means the population from which the next generation of advertisers are drawn has a higher threshold for shock. The second of these points is most important because it allows the trend to exist without the existence of some malevolent scheme perpetrated by 'standardless' advertisers. It's likely that both of these things are happening in marketing departments, they just vary in their relative importance from organisation to organisation.

The increase in shock value of each generation of advertising is roughly the same, because the shock threshold of the community increases with each generation. However, to somebody who manages to hold onto their original standards, the advertising would appear to be getting more and more atrocious.

So that's my model, made of pure handwavium...it doesn't account for the influence of government, disaster and other things that might quickly and radically transform the way people think.

Strength

2009-04-03T01:55:00.005+10:30

YOU WILL LOVE OUR NEW PRODUCTS

2009-01-18T22:49:00.007+10:30

brought to you by PGR and BNLNB and this age of $5 whiteboards.

Think globally, act stupidly

2009-01-10T11:04:00.003+10:30

Crapping on about injustice is all very well and good, but how the hell are you going to "cahnge the world™ (sic)" when you're too afraid to upset even the stas quo that exists in the misery of your backyard barbecue? Who needs a police state when everybody is a self-oppressing automaton, whose main outlet for rebellion is alcohol poisoning when not required to be a 'responsible employee'? The whole time you are answering the uncomfortable question in your head 'is this OK' with a resounding 'no but I don't want to cause a fuss'; you're a starving man eying off the buffet at the other table, but you're worried about looking like an idiot if you knock over your chair getting up. So you stay right there with your fellow starving inmates, publicly despising but privately admiring the misshapen weirdos who are messily stuffing their faces with all of that food, hoping for the tiniest wet chunk to glance off a blackened tooth and land in your lap so you can suck the grease out of the weave of your pants when nobody is looking.

In short, you are doing what you hate because you are concerned with maintaining the situation that causes you to do what you hate. You masquerade as something you hate so that people who you should hate like you BUT they hate you anyway because YOU IN ALL YOUR INFINITE COWARDICE are causing them to LIVE THE EXACT SAME SHADOW LIFE you are! YOU ARE THE ENEMY - maybe if you all weren't trying SO HARD to get along, you might just get along. The effort that you've expended in DESTROYING EACH OTHERS' LIVES probably precludes this though, as you've now got plenty of reasons to hate one another, whoever they are.

You are part of a rich foundation of viciousness that allows the most horrible crimes you can read about on Wikipedia (and worse) to be perpetrated! It's not apathy or complacency that is at the wheel of the semi trailer of human suffering - it's YOU and your desire to FIT IN! Your response to the isotropic curse-rays of NORMALITY, emanating from EVERYBODY ELSE, is to bury all of your truths deep inside and become yet another broadcast tower for LIES FM. This is a level of containment that only appears in the wet dreams of nuclear waste merchants - the overfiends stride comfortably on the surface formed by this desperate nobodiness, picking out locations for Their latest self-aggrandising missions. If They somehow noticed you in the grain of this concrete of wasted life, They would laugh at your attempts to avoid offending anybody; the overfiend can only be the overfiend BECAUSE offense is meaningless to Them. It is Their capacity for not caring about offense that allows Them to cause maximum offense to EVERYONE. Mind you, these are the ones lucky enough to survive the mockery and beatings issued by their peers, and to not be eaten by other overfiends upon burrowing out of the substrate. If it's the future of human civilisation you're trying to cahnge(sic), then this is the challenge that awaits you.

If, as I suspect, you have really given up on "the world™", then at least you can live your life in such a way that you don't notice when the hammer falls. Stop being the enemy of yourself and those around you - and prepare to become the enemy of yourself and those around you in a way that gives your existence some kind of pep. Praise "Bob".

Cyborg justice

2008-12-29T13:15:00.002+10:30

Flags for everyone!

2008-10-27T02:39:00.007+10:30

Proud to be ...insert nationality here...?

This makes as much sense as being proud that the Earth orbits the Sun! Like the location of your birth, you had nothing to do with the relevant processes that brought this state of affairs into being. Both are physical facts no reasonable person could or should take credit for.

Remarkably, society has engineered a gigantic theatrical performance in which many people act as if location of birth is a measure of worth. Unfortunately, most of the players have forgotten that it's just a show, and their ideas about the value of human life translate into real tragedies on every scale imaginable.

They forget that we are all the same species, and that the world they grew up in was not one of their making. As a result we have flag parades, refugees locked up in prison camps and TV programs where people go on and on about how 'our people' have a set of intrinsic qualities that consist exclusively of the best aspects of human behaviour (of course!).

Perhaps the orbit of a planet around a star is simply too far removed from the individual to invoke warm fuzzies. Imagine then if the play changed so that being born on Earth was the metric by which human worth was judged. This would eliminate the whole pride thing - being born on Earth, or even in the Universe, is something everybody has in common. Of course, we don't need an elaborate theatrical conspiracy to exist for this to be true!

Nationalism turns out to be just another one of those ruses used by the unscrupulous to divide the foolish for their own ends. Give a bunch of people a simple truth/identity to zealously latch onto, then label all others the enemy - the result is a slavering mob baying for blood at all costs. This is the extreme to which national pride will run, if let off the leash - a leash usually found in the hands of those who aspire to lead us. Observe as they loosen their grip whenever times get tough.

So if you really must get engage in flag-waving nonsense, fly a flag for Earth. Better yet, fly a flag of you, celebrate your own traditions and conduct your own interpersonal geopolitics. Take the future of your solo nation into your own hands and get teary-eyed as your personal anthem loops endlessly in your head! If you are going to get into ridiculousness, you may as well go all the way! Just keep in mind that you've no more claim on this world than any of the other six billion or so nations swarming on its surface.

Honesty

2008-10-26T22:34:00.004+10:30

A picture that brought to my mind this article, which was written by a great hero of our time.

Techno-smears

2008-10-24T03:26:00.002+10:30

Next exhibit: Planet Earth. Here we have a small planet with an infinitesimally thin smearing of technological organisms on its surface.

A kind-of determinist outlook might take away from 'the purpose of our existence' - but gives us the apparent freedom to decide what purpose we should or could follow, just for kicks.

For me the most fun adventure would be to see if this mechanically insignificant coating of humans can spanner up the works of the entire universe! 'You call that entropy?' we'd say, and bring the joys of an early heat death to the cosmos, swinging ropes of evaporating black holes above our heads as we scream towards the end of time itself.

from Mindcloud Wiki.

Night shift, two quotes and a leak from my brain

2008-10-11T03:49:00.004+10:30

"The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it, you think it's real, because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round and it has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud. And it's fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: 'Is this real? Or is this just a ride?' And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and they say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid - ever - because... this is just a ride.' And we kill those people.

'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride! Shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry; look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real.'

It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that - ever notice that? - and we let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter, because... it's just a ride, and we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort. No worry. No job. No savings and money. Just a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy bigger guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one.

Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, into a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year and, instead, spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would do many times over - not one human being excluded - and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever. In peace."

- Bill Hicks (1961 - 1994)

"One of the great revelations of the age of space exploration is the image of the earth, finite and lonely, somehow vulnerable, bearing the entire human species through the oceans of space and time. But this is an ancient perception . . . history is full of people who, out of fear or ignorance or the lust for power, have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to all of us. We must not let it happen again."

- Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

Passing judgements

2008-07-24T05:00:00.004+09:30

ITEM #1: 'Judge not, lest ye be judged by others.'

The reasons for not judging run deeper than this! How about: 'Judge not, because it is a shaky proposition to begin with'?

There is no such thing as a universal 'better'; this term has to be used in a particular context. For instance, one person may be a better runner than another, one may be better at sorting mail than another, this human might be better at solving differential equations than the next. These are all situation-specific things, which would be useless or even detrimental in other situations. Other notions of 'better' can be isolated in a similar way. The position of 'universally better' is generally used to justify terrible things happening to the people who aren't in that position. It works well because it inflates the ego of the 'better' and dehumanises the 'worse' - once a person is stripped of their humanity it means all manner of badness can be inflicted upon them with only minimal outcry from the conscience of the inflicter. A very convenient position to put yourself in if your lifestyle requires the misery of a number of other humans.

I have spent many years of my life passing judgement on others - of course I was always 'better'. Life experience and constantly being suprised at the incorrectness of my assumptions has meant that these days it is more of a non-binding guessing game, but there was a time when it completely shaped my interaction with other people. Fortunately I was not in such a position where my judgements could forseeably cause harm to their lives, but the amount of malice I could summon terrifies me! Far more terrifying is the fact that there are groups of humans all over the planet, in all sectors of society, whose judgemental ways are actively maintained in ways that are causing fear, misery and death to other humans. The only barrier preventing me from being part of one of these groups was my circumstances.

People wear so little of what they are on the outside - it's been said a billion times, but outward appearances are a poor measure of that flame of consciousness within. I'm not going to suggest that we all sit down and try to know each other, only that we acknowledge that we don't know each other. It has been said that sweeping generalisations make the task of navigating society much easier - I say it restricts us to groups of like-minded people, further entrenching existing prejudice. If there is no imminent danger in doing so, take people as they are on a case-by-case basis, reconstruct your assumptions and generally give others the benefit of the doubt. This way we are all open to recognise fellow humans as humans, to gather our scrambled minds together and put our animosity and alienation to rest.

Next time you find yourself JUDGING another human - STOP! Honestly ask yourself what has led them to their current state of existence, would you have done any different in their place? AND - would they have done any different than you in your place?

This mildly incoherent rant was brought to you by Wednesday night restlessness and a genuine desire to see the end of humans stamping on other humans.

Expectations

2008-04-10T23:47:00.006+09:30

Many humans spend a lot of time being miserable because of their perceived Failure To Live Up To Expectations. These expectations can be self-imposed, or can be placed on an individual by society (the media, parents, peers). These social expectations don't even need to be real - in order to feel them, the individual only has to make a judgement about what they think others expect of them.

Some expectations are arguably useful, especially those that involve such things as distribution of chores, being at least civil towards other humans, closing the refrigerator door and so on. But others are simply a load of tripe and actually interfere with the happiness of the individual. For instance,

"I'm x years old, I should be married/on a career path/something or rather by now!"

"I have to give up on my dreams and get a REAL job."

"I must hide my true personality in order to have meaningful relationships."

are some of the "big ones" causing misery to people in your street RIGHT NOW. Of course this is from a particular cultural perspective, but there are probably similarly crippling mind-poisons just about everywhere. These are unreasonable and place constraints on what an afflicted individual can and will do with their short time in this reality.

Granted, some of these expectations are enforced by peer group pressure - ignoring them can have dire consequences. Fear of rejection is potent, especially if an individual has no social alternative. Other times, there is physical or maybe financial coercion involved - behave this way, or you will suffer! This is an expression of an uneven power relationship. Unfortunately, there is not much to be done in these cases - from a self-preservation perspective the only thing to do is bow down and follow the set norms. However, living in this way is not entirely good for preservation of sanity!

Returning to a 'softer' situation, failure to meet expectations (real or otherwise) will not actually result in disaster or loss of life. In these cases, the expectations are probably only inside the head of the individual, implanted through paranoia and insidious whispers of 'normal' from media and other sources. The individual needs to look long and hard at the expectations they place upon themselves, and those they believe others place on them. The expectations that destroy self-esteem, force the abandonment of friends, dreams and interests, and otherwise cause denial of the self, should be cornered and destroyed.

This process can take time. It's a case of catching the expectations in the act of modifying behaviour, and making a conscious effort to defy this malignant programming.

Good luck in freeing yourself!

(This is the beginning of an article I started at Mindcloud Wiki.)

What isn't new?

2007-08-10T23:33:00.000+09:30

Here is a smattering of things what are going on.

Teaching
I just finished the third of four weeks of teaching prac, at an unusual school called the ASMS (Australian Science and Mathematics School). I've been teaching year 12 physics (which was really the idea in the first place) and some 10-11 maths and electronics.

Some of the things that have been going on:

adjusting to 0730-1700 daily full-time
planning planning planning planning one lesson after another
big confidence increase throughout the last two weeks (oh no)
wielding minor influence over ingrates

It's been hard work but it's enjoyable enough. Based on this experience I'll continue on with this degree - though I'm aware that this school is remarkably civilised, and I'll need to go to a normal school with proper ratbags in order to get the full experience of the thing.

In addition to these ridiculous hours I tutor three students a week in the evenings. This takes even more time and energy out of my general pool, but at least I get paid for that!

The Mindcloud Organisation

The Mindcloud Organisation shook off a thin layer of dust with the addition of Paul Bryson to the main team. Things are beginning to move along nicely with renewed vigour and all. We are talking about having an official Mindcloud launch in early 2008, by this time we hope to have built a sizeable community around the Mindcloud Wiki, and can run some sort of film/art/tech festival as part of this grand official opening. Soon the Mindcloud Organisation (MORG, apparently) website will be live, which will explain things for those of you who have no idea about what I'm speaking of. Of course if you want to hear it from me, send email, you will get a response. Anyway, I am looking forward to using my new work ethic on this project once the madness of this teaching prac is over.

The War

Sunday night Warhammer has become something of a tradition over at Sam's. My army of corrupted, diseased Space Marines emerges battered but slightly victorious, time and time again. Usually heavily outnumbered, the footsoldiers of the Lord of Decay never fail to appall the enemy with their ability to wade through barrages of machine gun fire more or less unscathed, only to unleash murder at close range. FUN. I'm putting together an Imperial Guard force at the moment - awaiting a 'special' tank which I ordered from the UK to beef up the heavy weapons count...

The Walk

Sam and I went walking at night through the Shepherd's Hill recreation park and surrounding valley, stopping to fail to smoke some frop above an abandoned rail tunnel. This trek was one of the best things I've done. On the way back, we saw many wonders; an alien landscape, a square cave, a heroic climb...There is something to be said for wandering in the outdoors in near-full-moonlight, without the baggage of humans who will whinge about the conditions no matter what they are.

Combo upgrade: 7.5->7.7

Various other things have happened lately, necessitating a series of updates to my organic supercomputer software. I will produce a list of the specific fixes some day, just not today.

ENJOY

Engaged

2007-06-11T23:34:00.000+09:30

ITEM:

Ann and I are engaged!

How good is that?

Blood

2007-03-01T15:35:00.000+10:30

I hope that this is not an accurate biography of your recent times. Whatever happens, you're not alone, so things will be OK.

Best wishes,

your brother

Needed: More Time, 12/02/2007

2007-02-12T14:37:00.000+10:30

Hi. I've been incredibly busy lately sorting out Mindcloud web stuff...attempting to make the thing somewhat cohesive and presentable before O-week, at which time I hope to start a club at Flinders. I had no this task would absorb nearly all of my available hours, and there were an awful lot of those.

Here's what I've been doing:

Making the interface for mindcloud.org (the "Main Interface"): this has required me to gain mo skills in graphic design, HTML and CSS. This has consumed the bulk of my time.

Setting up the forums at Forklift: the actual setup wasn't too bad, but trying to muck around with PHP-MySQL code in order to have the system randomly allocate ranks has proved to be a big time-sink.

Trying to get a category search tool for the wiki - at the moment there is no way to search for various combinations of categories, which limits the use of the Content Library.

Stuff that I still need to do in the next day or two:

Find a way to get cheap badges made for fundraising

Re-engineer the Main Page of the wiki to be more revealing of the content therein (actually it would be good if somebody else could have a crack at it)

Gathering at least ten Flinders students so we can start a Mindcloud Club at that university

Improving the "news" page at the mindcloud.org main interface

Lesser priorities:

Design new skin(s) for the wiki and forums that are similar in style to the main interface. Kind of a "consistent look and feel" thing.

It's not too bad, really. Better than spending all of that spare time playing video games and finding new ways to scratch my arse...

Tristan

Whinging tech note: Apple ruined my shit

2007-01-29T21:45:00.000+10:30

The other day, I installed a program on the iPod called Rockbox. This is basically an open-source replacement for the existing jukebox software, and it turned out to be superior in many respects. A casual reformatting of the iPod was required, which meant that I had to load all of my music on there once again.

The iPod is usually updated using iTunes, it has to be if the music is to be playable. This is because the Apple software on the iPod has no file browser, and because iTunes stows the tunes away in some crazy way. The mp3s are renamed with four-letter references, then split up randomly between numbered folders. Seemingly some sort of database keeps track of what is what - a method of preventing unauthorised copying of the files.

The new software has the ability just to find any music on the iPod and build a database from that...so it is possible to have a logical folder structure. This would also allow easy copying of files from the device. I hadn't yet fully tested Rockbox, so I thought I would be better off keeping the Apple file-mash. This turned out to be a mistake!

I discovered a rather nasty element of Apple's war on piracy - upon copying some music onto the iPod from my parents' computer, all of the music I had on there was immediately erased. That's 13GB of music, with which I was hoping to set the mood during my 10 hour trainride back to Adelaide. The other tragic thing about this is that it took almost a day to get those files on the mp3 player, thanks to the USB 1.1 connection on my music computer! Sneakily, iTunes only deletes the files, not the database - so the deed is only discovered later, when the user attempts to listen to their non-existent tunes.

Now I might just sound like any other pirate who has been foiled by copy protection, and some of you might say, "serves you right!" Had I been warned by iTunes that I was about to lose 13GB of data, I might have agreed with you in a minor way. At that point I probably would have balanced the pros and cons of what I was about to do. Any other program would warn you if you were about to delete existing files. But here, iTunes makes the assumption that you are trying to pull an illegal stunt, and wipes the device without a mention. What if you had thousands of public domain tracks, or personal creations, or something of that nature? Many of the things I had on there did in fact fit into that category, being made by friends, family and myself. Bah Christ!

So yes, crudtastic.

Whinge completed.

Addendum: Shortly after this, my Quicktime installation on another computer spontaneously broke, urging me to upgrade to the version it already was, and preventing me from watching the videos it still loaded. The other amusing facet of this glitch: I can't "get info" on any .mov file on my system to change the program that opens them all. It will have to be done one by one.

Time to upgrade

2006-12-27T09:40:00.000+10:30

Version 7.0 officially released today.

Notes:

TRISTAN v7.0 is the newest, but probably not the final iteration of Tristan's adaptive-organic supercomputer software
.
This upgrade adds/restores certain functions, most notably:

the ability to make good use of steaming buckets of free time
enhanced (enchanted?) rudeness
a "new approach" to prophetic and pontific speech module design, with higher throughput of thrown stones
improvements to bastard detection

and

These are some of the major overhauls in what is a package of revisions to make life more interesting for everyone within range of a bottle throw (increasing daily with new exercise routines). TRISTAN v 7.0 comes endorsed with an Honours degree in Physics.

This has nothing to do with New Year's res., promises, personal vision or life-goals. It is a compatibility upgrade effective immediately to slimly reduce the probability of a mental overheat during Orbit 24. Please note that the Same Old Kernel will continue unaffected, no upgrades were necessary due to its inpenetrable security and scrutineering.

To put it in ridiculous terms, this is yet another example of mind over mind, a mentality warping itself into a Klein bottle of fractal intra-ideology. Pouring itself out over its own surface, it defies traditional geometric arguments in a wonderful landscape of blazing wireframe and circular references. In a flourish, the whole thing becomes liquid metal and drips into the void, skittering in all directions across the broken space-time. Then, as if by sheer determination, the drops begin to converge - one by one they freeze into a four-dimensional sculpture of such beautiful shape. For a brief moment you see its true form - its higher dimensions are like a knife poised edge on to your perceptions. Before you can appreciate your place in this impossible scene, you are snatched back into the mundane reflexes of propagation, unaware and immediately forgetful of what you had just witnessed. A survival reflex, more than anything; the rock of Time compels all who behold it to break their skulls against it. To physically hold the past and future of Everything in one's hands, yet be powerless to shape it, is more than the human mind can take - the popping of wormcans builds to a deafening roar as the brain attempts to rearrange itself for the slow recovery.

What was that about. [?]

Donuts that leave a bad taste in the mouth

2006-09-15T11:27:00.000+09:30

I was watching the TV last night when an advertisement for Donut King appeared on the screen. It was one of those weird drifting text and bright colours sort of ads, only moderately offensive. Or so I thought - for five seconds in the middle of this garish landscape of eye-blasting pink, none other than Pauline Hanson graced the screen, endorsing the fine doughy goodness. Then the ad continued for a while as though nothing had happened...
It took a little while for me to process this. I had to confirm with Ann that what I saw actually happened. Her face was a mixture of confusion and horror, and I needed no further proof than that...

Pauline Hanson seems a strange choice to give an endorsement. Even if you supported her, most people view her with contempt, their opinions of her ranging from idiot to criminal to racist nut.
On the same night, we witnessed One Nation founder David Oldfield alongside moderately well-known celebs on Survivor.

At what point did Hanson and her ilk achieve acceptable celebrity status? Are things so desperate that bigots behind past controversies have to be dredged up to inpsire commerce? Perhaps people have forgiven or forgotten the things that these people represent. I sure haven't.

As Ann put it, "I can't buy donuts from a white supremacist." Neither can I. I'm afraid they just don't taste very good when sprinkled with racism.

Tristan Miller

I'm really bad at this, 12/09/2006

2006-09-15T11:25:00.000+09:30

A great period of upheaval appears to be drawing to a close, at least on the local scale. My immediate family have upped and left this fair state, for other pastures, be it Melbourne or the Northern Territory...whilst I have endured yet another house move. These things happen I suppose. My brother invited me to loot his house after his departure, as there were many things that he and Tessa did not get time to dispose of, store or Tetris into their car. It was a strange experience, picking through an empty house that still held the presence of its previous occupants. Everything about it reminded me of the events that transpired there over the years; memories like waking up on the kitchen floor after the most horrendous election party (with the hot Liberal sun shining in my eyes), brotherly backyard boxing bouts, more drinking, or just hanging around - these were all vividly replayed in my mind. The occasional relic of childhood dotted the landscape, a few in places too obscure to be seen by anyone in a hurry to get out of there. If it wasn't for the random bits and pieces scattered throughout the entire house, I doubt I would have felt much, but everywhere in there held reminders of the way of Sam and Tessa, which is something I will miss being around so often.
That said, I scored some pretty good gear while I was there, including booze, a printer, and many metres of extension cords and power boards. Some things are lost, but others are gained when things change one way or another. So although I miss my family a lot, I know that the times we are together will be all the more incredible.
That's all I can say at this time,

Tristan Miller

Epic

2006-05-16T23:45:00.000+09:30

This has been a week of the Epic, the raw material of which new legends are built, towering fortresses of mighty exploits and heroic deeds rising out of the stirred dust of the Creation.
Of course these ideas mean nothing to those who count for nothing, who are born bereft of spirit or conviction and live selfish, swine-like lives. Ultimately though they are in the sway of those capable of taking hold of the epic qualities that are in every grain of this Universe. The Beige Ones may be on the top of the pile at the moment, but the future is forged from legends, not on who has the best stock portfolio.

A quest

A journey was undertaken just the other day: a trek of many miles across the most hostile regions of the Adelaide Plains. The ones who heeded the call took on their shoulders a task only the brave could reckon with . Pushing the frontiers of what the uninspired consider sane or reasonable, we communed with the Rust God, and drew close to the mighty metal monsters that migrate across the Continent. Battered but not broken, we gained the City. The feast that awaited us was arguably even more epic than the feat we had accomplished.

Rest In Peace

One day I encountered a beast that had recently met its end. A giant creature of many legs, I had dealt with it many times in my travels, and it was known to be an honourable and wise being. Needless to say, I was saddened by its passing,and the proper respects had to be paid. I gathered my people together, and the sunset was outshone by the flaming casket making its way out over the water.

Fly freely amongst the trees of the Gods, Mr. Miyagi.

THAT'S IT

The final doom of the Underverse

2006-05-02T00:12:00.000+09:30

The Underverse is officially dead. It has been wiped off the face of the planet. Now the site is just a placeholder for the domain name, an address which was once the gateway to a bold new future. Only its rotting corpse remains today, in the form of disassociated articles that were cached by Google when the Underverse was in its prime.

It is a strange thing to watch a dream develop, feeding off the toil of the inspired, then to see it topple into the dust from which it emerged. The ghost of the Underverse will eventually be exorcised from the Interweb, but the circumstances and times surrounding it are things that won't be forgotten by those involved.

I have heard humans speak of the Underverse with fond remembrance, of the crazy creative blasts that we as a community would unleash upon our growing sphere of influence. Yet the same people are unwilling to take part in recreating that amazing insanity. This nostalgic defiance is infuriating, and reeks of laziness. However, it is understandable - people invested a lot of themselves in the Underverse. To have the plug pulled on them was a breach of trust and a slap in the face of their hard work and dedication. It's difficult to break down these kinds of barriers, but it is worth trying. I saw how the Underverse inspired people. Building a similar atmosphere with Mindcloud is crucial to its success in improving the lives of everyone.

Anyhow, that's enough for today.

RIP UNDERVERSE
22/02/2005 - 01/05/2006
Damn the Earth Government

Version 6.2

2006-04-25T13:41:00.000+09:30

The time has come for yet another incremental upgrade of my adaptive-organic supercomputer software.

My recent trip to Sydney brought about the need for an update. Hours of walking in solitude along the good old paths gave me ample time for thought. Not the usual everyday consideration of all that is, which is all too often disrupted by the need to get off the bus or something else...this was sustained thinking over several days, enough time for it to reach a howling crescendo. Just as I explored the city, so too was my mind surveyed - all stones were picked up and looked at from every possible perspective. It had the effect of making me look like a shambling madman, my beard completing this fanatical appearance.

To add fuel to this fire, vivid memories were being unlocked at every location I went to. More like technicolor than faded recollections, the past was being superposed over the present - I could see events playing out as they did several years ago. The amazing thing was that these memories had been unaffected by the passage of time - they were safely stowed away in some corner of my brain without my knowledge. Every time I stumbled through a place of personal historical significance, a flood of memories was triggered. Recollections seemed to pour out of every street, until all of those memories had been kicked back into my standard thought processes.

It wasn't the usual sort of nostalgia you get from visiting old stomping grounds. That usually manifests itself as fond familiarity and a tale told if anyone is around to hear it. This was a gripping, soul-shaking experience, and I wonder if it has anything to do with my attempt to destroy Time a couple of weeks ago.

The upgrade to v6.2 was necessary to avoid Freaking Out.

Until next time,

TRISTAN

Whining and prattling

2006-01-18T00:11:00.000+10:30

From ProtoMindcloud...

Entry the First, 16/01/2005

Deadlines

Like many idiots, I was taken by surprise when it was 'suddenly' January 2006, and all those various deadlines that seemed so far away at X-Mas are now looming. I have thousands of things that I'm doing in the non-working times, and I had this impression that I could bring them all to some sort of completion/stability before the end of January, 2006AD - the start of Uni...

There's a website to consolidate, a language to learn, a textbook to ingest, a band to revive and an army to paint, to name just a few. It's not like I've been procrastinating on any of these things, either! There just isn't enough time to settle them all...and I'm not prepared to destroy myself by trying a polyphasic sleep pattern. Instead I'll probably destroy myself with late nights, early mornings, poor hygiene and a terrible diet, with dire consequences for all around me.

[edit]

Infestations

Since the moth infestation of Black Forest, in early 2005, I haven't experienced the pure entertainment of a full-blown animal plague. That was, until 'summer' arrived, bringing with it a host of surplus invertebrates. For instance, a smashed-out window of my car affords mosquitoes budget accommodation during the nights, and when I turn on the fan in the morning, the insects pour out of the vents. It's a new take on the words 'insect spray' if nothing else.

Apart from the mozzies and thousands of flies, the outdoor regions of my house play host to an ecosystem made up entirely of spiders, and the occasional wasp. It wasn't always that way...I remember more insects, particularly moths a few months ago.

The pigeons are becoming a nuisance. They were kind of amusing at first, nesting on the tops of the chimneys, crapping down into the fireplaces. This all changed when I found one of them on top of my curtain rod, dropping its virus-laden wastes all over my pillows, guitar, sheets and all other surfaces in a metre radius of the bird. Extraction was a time consuming process, eventually I used its stupidity against it and tricked it into riding outside in a box. This incident has highlighted the need for a gun in the house.

Meanwhile, my pet insects are working as hard as they can to generate their own infestation. Now that they've mated, I'm expecting the beginnings of hundreds of eggs within a fortnight...if you want some of these, just let me know.

[edit]

Information

I just finished reading a chapter about Thomas Edison vs Nikola Tesla, in a book entitled Acid Tongues and Tranquil Dreamers, by Michael White. The book is all about rivalry between scientists, bitter feuds and terrible deeds that fuelled the advancement of science and technology...

Anyhow, I found out that Thomas Edison, although inventive, may have been a hack and an amoral bastard to boot. According to White, the electric chair was invented at the height of an Edison campaign to prove to the public the deadliness of AC electricity, a rival technology that Tesla and backers were attempting to sell to the public. In the process of trying to discredit the rival to his problematic DC system, many dogs were also electrocuted to death at public meetings. Most of these were elaborately staged PR spectacles with little science behind them.

Interesting reading, anyway. I'll have to cross-check with other accounts before I completely launch into an Edison smear campaign though.

New Blog

2005-12-02T14:51:00.000+10:30

It's time I started adhering words to the Interweb-hopefully it will cause something interesting to happen.

Links to new posts will probably appear on my user page on mindcloud, and links to new articles on mindcloud will appear here as well...

Enough for now.