Brontle

"Think you know the Chindia story? Betcha don’t – no-one really does because it’s simply..."

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 07:48:00 -0400

“Think you know the Chindia story? Betcha don’t – no-one really does because it’s simply too big to fully grasp and it’s still being written. Besides, “Chindia” is only part of the story with the rest of emerging Asia deserving fat volumes as well.”

- Michael Pascoe | Chindia - you aint seen nuthin yet | China | India

batrock: thedailywhat: Role Model of the Day: Award-winning...

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 09:43:22 -0400

batrock:

thedailywhat:

Role Model of the Day: Award-winning sci-fi novelist Neil Gaiman will be animated for a guest stint on an upcoming episode of the long-running kid’s show Arthur, in which he inspires one of Elwood City’s budding graphic novelists to follow their dream.

This has got to be the single most fantastically surreal cameo of all time.

[geekdad.]

I love that he’s so pale.

"To my mind, the ”shrink Australia crowd” is suffering from an imagination deficit. They..."

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:36:14 -0400

“To my mind, the ”shrink Australia crowd” is suffering from an imagination deficit. They cannot, or will not, see that well designed cities can be our salvation. If we get over our hang-up about density, and start thinking and investing in innovative urban design, then the future starts to take on a whole different aspect.”

- Maxine McKew - How Sydney can get its groove back

justinbarbour: Originally posted here, created by James...

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 10:35:42 -0400

justinbarbour:

Originally posted here, created by James Fiander.

"Within a few months of arriving at Harvard, Zuckerberg had created a website called Facemash.com..."

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 07:00:15 -0400

“Within a few months of arriving at Harvard, Zuckerberg had created a website called Facemash.com that enabled students to rate each other’s attractiveness. It proved an instant hit – in under two hours, the site logged 22,000 votes – but was taken down after an outcry over privacy violations.”

- The Social Network: Facebook’s intriguing world revealed | Technology | The Observer

So proto-Facebook was basically a Hot Or Not clone. Well, that’s almost what Facebook is sometimes.

"Far from being a cultivator of the humanities, the academic labor system has destroyed dreams and..."

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:55:27 -0400

“Far from being a cultivator of the humanities, the academic labor system has destroyed dreams and stamped out passions; it routinely drives gifted and idealistic people to the brink of despair and beyond it. It has done so for 40 years now, and there’s no end in sight. The enemies of intellectualism—for whom the word “professor” cannot be uttered without a sneer—have no greater ally than the wasted lives of so many would-be academics.”

- ‘A Very Special Marketplace’ - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education

This is probably my favourite Kpop song so far this...

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 03:41:38 -0400

This is probably my favourite Kpop song so far this year.

Unfortunately, T.O.P’s stage name is not based on its gay meaning.

boyjupiter:

T.O.P - “Turn It Up”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdPnMoxKOWY

The dark horse of K-pop ensemble Big Bang, T.O.P pulls out a show-stopper for his latest solo release.

Take one part Ne-Yo suaveness, one part Pharrell cool and blend it up with a heavy whiff of Jay-Z’s seminal clip for “On to the Next One” - and you’re almost there. Top it off - if you’ll pardon the pun - with pure schmexiness and a rollickingly good beat, and this is the magic that results.

Prepare to have your mind blown. :o)

"A Greens senator I spoke to recently responded that “the Greens will get caned if we are seen to be..."

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:45:53 -0400

“A Greens senator I spoke to recently responded that “the Greens will get caned if we are seen to be economically incompetent”. Of course, the senator was right about that – but the solution is to re-educate the population on what economic competence means, not to lock ourselves into the cage of wingnut Costellonomics as Labor has done. The same applies to other issues, such as refugees, the Aboriginal Intervention, and welfare quarantining.”

- What Now for the Greens? :: Larvatus Prodeo

Tomorrow, When the War Began [review]

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:22:00 -0400

Tomorrow, When The War Began is an effective, taut adaptation of John Marsden’s YA classic about a group of teenagers who return from a camping trip to find their country town has been captured in a land invasion of Australian, and who become guerrilla fighters.

Like most contemporary film translations of popular book franchises, the characters and plot arrive on screen details intact but spirit truncated. The novel’s strengths were its characterisation and its exploration of violence and bravery. The film’s character development can be awkward - rapid fire, pithy dialogue exchanges are designed for maximum philosophical impact - but I’m glad it has enough moral flesh to engage as more than just action film.

The opening scenes veer away from Marsden’s ‘let’s test our stamina in the wilderness’ stuff towards fluffy teen romcom. This works well, though the film tries too hard to be funny when it could show more trust in the appeal of its characters.

The action sequences are well staged and often quite tense, but also impatiently fast. Shots of the abandoned rides and sideshows at the occupied showground are suitably eerie, but this isn’t dwelt upon. Later a shot of an empty swing builds on subtext about leaving innocence behind, but the frenetic pace doesn’t leave room for the pressure cooker character exploration of the book’s “action” sequences.

Caitlin Stasey looks nothing like the Ellie of the books, who is sturdy and a bit rough, but she does a great job with the character’s seriousness and self-doubt. The cast is fairly strong overall.

Homer (Deniz Akdeniz) and Lee (Chris Pang) are ethnic stereotypes, as much as they were in print. Homer is a devilish but sweet Greek badboy, Lee a studious, quiet, intense Asian boy. I guess the point is Homer grows out of the ethnic stereotype he has been hiding in. The depiction of Lee is more problematic, though, in book and film. There are shades of a very dark orientalism in his transformation into cunning guerrilla fighter. Is Ellie’s attraction to Lee bound up with what makes her such an effective soldier (against the unnamed Asian invaders)?

Ellie pauses to look a female soldier she has killed in the face: I felt the film was referencing the shot of a dying girl sniper at the end of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, another war film with orientalisms up for discussion. However Tomorrow is not symbolically or structurally rich like Full Metal Jacket and the moment seems a bit forced: Ellie Pauses To Acknowledge Soldier She Has Killed Is Much Like Her. Having the invaders be east Asian shows up the ridiculousness of Marsden’s premise - Australia facing land invasion. The film can’t enjoy Marsden’s luxury of evoking Asian invasion paranoia without being explicit.

Will further films tackle this larger racial discourse in surprising ways? In the books the characters describe the invaders as insects, or a disease, tapping a strand of racially paranoid language which has persisted in Australia from the 19th century. This is not an unrealistic portrayal of how Australian teenagers might react in the circumstances. However, future films could be challenging or they could be avoidant in the choices they make about portraying the invaders themselves.

I hope sequels come. Things get much more dark and tortured for Ellie in Marsden’s books, and I would love to see Stasey take this on. I hope further films could build on the strengths of this one, but take more risks - deeper characterisation, darker and more sustained action sequences. Oh but also, bolder creative departures from the books, too - if I’m not being too greedy.

"3. Admit That Nothing Matters. Last weekend, as I looked at my miles-long to-do list and tried to..."

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:42:21 -0400

“

3. Admit That Nothing Matters.

Last weekend, as I looked at my miles-long to-do list and tried to feel bad for being behind schedule, I realized something just as powerful as my passion for staying busy:

Ultimately, I really don’t care.

Things will get done, or they won’t. I’ll succeed, or I’ll fail. I’ll live a life, and eventually I’ll die, and whatever impact I’ve had or legacy I leave will be up to someone else to make sense of. I can’t control that, and trying to is an exercise in futility and a waste of energy that could be better spent exploring and enjoying my life.

So why feel guilty?

This line of thought might seem counter-productive to my stated goal of living a more active and engaged life. It may even seem nihilistic. But, on the contrary, I find that it helps me avoid wasting time and energy on feeling frustrated or guilty for not living up to arbitrary benchmarks and judgments of success, including my own.

Life is short. Or it’s long. Or, if you’re lucky, it’s just long enough.

It’s up to each of us to find our own rhythm. But I doubt I’ll find mine by running in place.

”

- Justin Kownacki - 3 Ways to Avoid Becoming a Chronic Underachiever

"Former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett blames Gillard for talking down Australia. He says neither side..."

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:35:29 -0400

“Former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett blames Gillard for talking down Australia. He says neither side offered the nation a passionate agenda for the future and they were rewarded for their short-termism with a hung parliament. Asked to explain Victoria’s separation from the rest of the nation, Kennett cites bipartisanship on economic reform, immigration and mental health. The state is competitive, open and caring. “I think people in Victoria are more content because we took the hard decisions, not only in utilities but also in services, even though sometimes I still get abused by some people that what we did in education and health was wrong, but Labor haven’t changed any of that,” he says. “I have always argued that the concept of a big country and a big population is right, not that you flood the market. “But if you stand still, your competitors overtake you. And that applies to a country as much as anything else.” Gillard, he says, was intimidated by the redneck element in the community. She limited the election to Queensland and NSW, which was the signal to the southern states to tune out. “When she came out and said we are not going to be a big country, we are going to be a sustainable country, she was the first national leader, in response to the outspoken baying of the minority, to drive us towards a smaller thinking. And I thought that was just terrible,” Kennett says. “It goes against everything I believe in because not only are we a big country, our long-term future depends on us being big thinkers.” Easy to say, perhaps, from the nation’s cosmopolitan capital. But Victoria is the state the rest of the nation imagines itself to be. The problem for both sides of politics is they can’t make the nation as happy as Victoria without first administering some Kennett-style shock therapy to Queensland and NSW. Unfortunately, a hung parliament is the least likely institution to deliver the nation the next round of state-based reform because a minority government won’t want to enrage Queensland all over again.”

- Divided we stand | The Australian

"My vote - and I suspect the votes of many others - would lie with a new party, headed by the likes..."

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:32:52 -0400

“My vote - and I suspect the votes of many others - would lie with a new party, headed by the likes of Turnbull or Rudd (although not necessarily them), that is truly of the 21st century. This would be a party that embraces the market, although believes in regulation to prevent exploitation by employers and big business. It would believe in sustainability and climate change, yet would encourage innovation and enterprise to solve these problems. It would be tolerant of cultural diversity, comfortable with same-sex marriage and strongly secular. It would believe that the government plays a crucial role in society, and that we need to pay sufficient tax for it to execute that role effectively, but government should be only as big as necessary and as small as possible. Moreover, the party wouldn’t be tied to unions or the church.”

- ABC The Drum Unleashed - The missing party in Australian politics

"In what could now be termed the progressive states - Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania -..."

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 01:11:34 -0400

“In what could now be termed the progressive states - Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania - Labor’s primary vote fell by about 2 per cent and actually rose in Tasmania by 1.3 per cent. But the biggest swings were towards the Greens.”

- Size of swing to Greens surprises Labor strategists

I wonder how much this ‘progressive states’ stuff is going to get fixed in political discourse.

"It is revealing that the rot sets in early for Labor. It isn’t unusual to find Young Liberals..."

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:16:28 -0400

“It is revealing that the rot sets in early for Labor. It isn’t unusual to find Young Liberals attending weekend retreats run by right-wing think tanks, reading up on their Adam Smith, Karl Popper and Friedrich von Hayek. By contrast, Young Labor activists have their rite of passage in campaign schools, such as NSW Labor’s Campaign Insight program , in which participants are taken through micro-campaign marketing techniques. The effects are perverse. Future Liberal operatives will be able to speak about the underpinnings of classical liberalism. Their Labor counterparts, however, are more likely to be adept at speaking about electoral margins.”

- The true believers must now rally to save Labor’s languishing soul | The Australian

"Yet although ‘Westminster model’ countries continue to share a powerful institutional heritage, it..."

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:07:25 -0400

“Yet although ‘Westminster model’ countries continue to share a powerful institutional heritage, it seems doubtful that the electoral aspects of the model can ever be the same again. For the UK’s forthcoming referendum on adopting the Alternative Vote, this recognition that the world as a whole is changing towards more complex and multi-party politics may sway some more voters and politicians towards backing reform. Then again, since the Australian system, like ‘first past the post’ elections, has now failed to produce a clear electoral outcome, those who hanker after artificial majorities may take it as further reason for opposing change.”

- Every key ‘Westminster model’ country now has a hung Parliament, following Australia’s ‘dead heat’ election » British politics and policy at LSE

"Electorally, the rise of the Greens will almost inevitably force Labor into a coalition of some kind..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:37:25 -0400

“Electorally, the rise of the Greens will almost inevitably force Labor into a coalition of some kind with the environmental party. Simple numbers dictate this outcome: as the Greens continue to eat into Labor’s inner-city base, it will make ever less sense to run three-cornered contests. This will be hard for the proud Australian Labor Party, which may never again govern nationally in its own right. But binding the Greens into a governing coalition acknowledges the electoral arithmetic of Australia’s centre-left voting base, which is now split irrevocably between the two parties.”

- ABC The Drum Unleashed - Election post-mortem Ben Eltham

"…it is timely to challenge some of this repeated mythology that our major political parties..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:58:08 -0400

“…it is timely to challenge some of this repeated mythology that our major political parties promote as fact at this point of the political cycle.
1. “Hung” as a concept.
The original concept of a Parliament has been around a lot longer than the concept of the political party. Democracy has existed in many forms since man has been able to think rationally, and a hung Parliament was never a perceived or real problem until the concept of the political party arrived.
The term “hung parliament” implies that voters want power to rest in the hands of a majority political party, rather than with the Parliament. Yet in the upcoming Australian election, voters will elect 150 local members, who will have promoted themselves, as night follows day, as local MP‟s who will be voting in their electorate‟s and their nation‟s best
interests. No other issue, including their party‟s agenda, should matter. Indeed, it should be seen by local electors as borderline treason if a local MP votes against the best interests of their electorate or country and votes against these pre-election promises, due to some self-interest or political party interest. This can be argued as the all-pervading problem in Australian politics today, and a problem deserving of push-back from the people. I am pleased Newspoll is now starting to show the push-back is on.
Under the original concept of a Parliament, every new MP was unaligned and the Parliament was therefore “very hung”. No one group could exercise control over the rights of the individual MP, nor take authority off the Parliament itself. Open negotiation and compromise on the parliamentary floor was difficult but welcome, and it was certainly a superior system to the alternative we see in Australia today, whereby deals are done behind closed doors, away from the eyes and ears of voters. An active, alive floor of Parliament is democracy at its best, not worst, and unfortunately only seen today in the form of conscience votes, or hung parliaments.
A hung Parliament is therefore a concept created by political parties, to help entrench their role and kill the concept of a living, breathing, transparent (and therefore accountable) Parliament. Following this year‟s national ballot, if elected MP‟s, regardless of party affiliation, fulfil their duty in Parliament and put their electorate and their nation first in their voting patterns, then Australia will be stronger and healthier without a majority political party in charge, And this outcome should be celebrated, not feared.
2. A hung Parliament means the “balance of power” rests in the hands of a few.
Rubbish. This will only occur if political parties vote in block and along ideological party lines that are at odds with their duties as local MPs. Every MP has the balance of power in their hands if a Parliament is so tight as to make the concept itself an issue. It then becomes an issue of who wants to use this power, where, and why - all in the public domain on the floor of Parliament and all within the direct gaze of the people, transparent and therefore accountable.
3. A hung Parliament is a slow, chaotic, unstable, and bad Parliament
I am forever reminded by my NSW State colleague and Lord Mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, that between 1991 and 1995, when the NSW Parliament had no clear majority party in charge, more legislation passed in that four year period than at any time in its history. Compare the current frustrations in NSW regarding dodgy planning decisions and how they relate to political party funding, where a majority political party runs the show, compared with the period from ‟91-„95 where a charter of budget honesty was in place due to the fact the Parliament had authority over the executive - the fact that “balance of power” forces an open, transparent process, and is not an indicator of a weaker policy agenda. If anything, it‟s the opposite.”

- WHAT’S SO WRONG WITH BEING ‘HUNG’? | Rob Oakeshott Independent

A kiss is just a kiss, even in teen TV. “Even in terms...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:14:00 -0400

A kiss is just a kiss, even in teen TV.

“Even in terms of retaining our G Classification we treated a same sex kiss no differently than we treated a ‘straight’ kiss.”

TVtonight - A kiss is just a kiss, even in teen TV.

"The support for the Greens was largely a protest vote, as it assumed that “they will never..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:56:00 -0400

“The support for the Greens was largely a protest vote, as it assumed that “they will never govern”, although some were conned into believing that they had a better policy on climate change, for example, even though they didn’t negotiate and voted against the ETS. They did not offer a comprehensive, integrated policy platform, more a grab bag of populist/sectoral promises and initiatives. They are still, nevertheless, in the eyes of many, the “true” left wing of the ALP.”

- ABC The Drum Unleashed - How to woo the independents

It is true the Greens benefited from a protest vote, but it’s BS to criticise them for not negotiating on the Rudd Govt’s ETS. The Rudd Govt didn’t let them negotiate! It didn’t let them anywhere near negotiation!

"The fact remains that nearly 90% of Australians rejected the Greens on August 21, despite all the..."

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 01:47:44 -0400

“The fact remains that nearly 90% of Australians rejected the Greens on August 21, despite all the hype and positive media coverage they received. So while this election certainly wasn’t a disaster for the Greens, they have again failed to live up to expectations. They also owe much of their success to the Liberal Party’s decision to preference them in key seats. One suspects Adam Bandt will neglect to mention this in his maiden speech, but he would be wise to do so, given his hopes of re-election hinge on the same decision being made next time.”

- ABC The Drum Unleashed - Greenslide? Hardly