Elizabeth.

There have been so many words, so much grief, and so much love expressed in your memory these last days. Everyone wants to share their story. How you touched their life. How you were wonderful. I have not been immune to this.

The grief is strong. I suspect I am not alone in being the only one for whom you are the first close friend – a peer – to die.

You were one of the most genuine, forthright, honest people I have known. You were one of the most accepting people I have known, but also you had a very strong sense of justice, and would not tolerate that which was wrong.

I wrote in a comment that you affected people, and I think that defines well your interactions with the world. You knew people, and people knew you. You were affected by people because of your great empathy, but you affected people because of simply who you were.

There is an Elizabeth shaped hole in so many hearts, and my head-Lizbeth appreciates the love from us all, but also tells us to stop being so daft and get on with our lives.

And we will. I promise. We will.

But maybe not just yet.

There are a few more tears to shed, memories to share, and hearts that are still raw

Time heals wounds – because as time passes, events in history appear smaller. Right now the grief at your loss looms large on our collective horizon of history, and in time it will become part of the tableau of life. But memories of you will remain strong, of that I am sure. You wont be forgotten. Your affect on people wont be forgotten. Memories of you will join with other events over the years, but you will remain bright.

The world is a better place that you were in it, and a sadder place now you are gone.

• Elizabeth’s blog – sky between branches
• Elizabeth’s short-run webcomic – _underscore_

• 1901: declared ourselves a country, own constitution, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_Australia
• 1910: Australia got it’s own pound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_pound (it was locked to the Pound Sterling by Australian policy till 1929, and replaced by the decimal dollar in 1966)
• 1927: dominions have equal status to the UK (ie, created the commonwealth) (1926 Imperial Conference, Balfour Declaration 1926 and Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_v_Hill
• 1942: Australian laws could contradict UK laws (previously, any contradiction meant the AU law was invalid) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_Adoption_Act_1942
• 1949: the concept of “citizen of Australia” came about (but still said “british subject”) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_nationality_law
• 1953: legally recognising the “Australian flag” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Australia
• 1984 (April): Australia gets its own National Anthem.
• 1984 (November): Australian citizens no longer also “british subject”) (see Australian_nationality_law again)
• 1986: removed ability of UK to alter Australian constitution, or overrule Australian courts – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Act_1986

Soon afterwards, however, in Shaw (2003),[19] the whole Court (including Kirby) took a more comprehensive view: that the Australia Act in its two versions, together with the State request and consent legislation, amounted to establishing Australian independence at the date when the Australia Act (Cth) came into operation, 3 March 1986.

The three main steps to independence were 1901 – formation and recognition of a country. 1942 – Ability to contradict UK laws. And 1986 – UK unable to override Australian courts.

The wikipedia article on Geek Pride day lists a “manifesto” of sorts, or a “geek code”(see below) for Geek Pride Day…

…here it is:

Rights:

1. The right to be even geekier.
2. The right to not leave your house.
3. The right to not like football or any other sport.
4. The right to associate with other nerds.
5. The right to have few friends (or none at all).
6. The right to have as many geeky friends as you want.
7. The right to be out of style.
8. The right to be overweight and near-sighted.
9. The right to show off your geekiness.
10. The right to take over the world.

Responsibilities:

1. Be a geek, no matter what.
2. Try to be nerdier than anyone else.
3. If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.
4. To save and protect all geeky material.
5. Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a “museum of geekiness.”
6. Don’t be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.
7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.
8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.
9. Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.
10. Try to take over the world!

So, I have a problem with this. Not all of it, and mostly the ‘responsibilities’ section…

But I get ahead of myself. Here is where I disagree with the rights…

Right #5. The right to have few friends (or none at all).

So, in response to this, some images.

[Thanks to http://www.buzzfeed.com/scott/nerd-venn-diagram for what seems to be the original Geek Venn diagram, and http://www.surelyyourenotserious.com/blog/?p=920 for the spectrum diagram]

So back to it.

Whilst Right #5 states that a geek may have no friends – which is fine as a choice, but it also implies that geeks may have no friends due to a lack of social grace. …and that, imho, doesn’t sync with the very definition of a geek. (don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against nerds by the definitions given here. I have nerdy friends and geeky friends, and I have nerdy moments and geeky moments. But it’s to be a geek that I aspire, and take pride in)

Nonetheless, it’s a relatively minor issue and harder to defend (but lets me include pretty pictures

Moving on to the responsibilities. Overall, they mix ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ in annoying and inconsistent ways…

2. Try to be nerdier than anyone else.

Surely being a geek is largely about individuality. I don’t mind competitive behaviour, but I object to it being a responsibility. You cannot mandate competitiveness.

3. If there is a discussion about something geeky, you must give your opinion.

MUST?! No. Really not. To be allowed to care passionately and state your case, sure. But I object to “must” here.

4. To save and protect all geeky material.

Even though I myself am a hoarder and packrat, I think to call it a *responsibility* is too wide reaching. Also, “all”?? See point #6

5. Do everything you can to show off geeky stuff as a “museum of geekiness.”

Again, why is SHOWING OFF now a responsibility? Be passionate, sure. But sometimes collecting is a private endeavour. This links back to #3.

6. Don’t be a generalized geek. You must specialize in something.

This… I kind of agree with. Kind of. But still think it’s a bit strong for a RESPONSIBILITY…

Also, this contradicts several other responsibilities listed herein. According to this I have to specialise, but according to #4 and #7, #8, I have to care about ALL and EVERY geeky thing…

7. Attend every nerdy movie on opening night and buy every geeky book before anyone else.

Is this a competition again? sheesh. See point #6

For the record, it’s possible to be a geek without caring about movies or books!

8. Wait in line on every opening night. If you can go in costume or at least with a related T-shirt, all the better.

EVERY? See points #6 and #7. *sigh*

9. Don’t waste your time on anything not related to geekdom.

Limitations is not the geek way. Defining some things as being not geek and therefore a waste of time – is a limitation!

Damn the man. Do what you want.

And another thing…

In accordance with responsibility #6 (and yes, I recognise the irony of citing responsibility #6 which I myself object to), isn’t “Geek Pride” kind of, well, GENERIC?

So on May 25 I celebrate TOWEL DAY. A day for Hitchhiker and Douglas Adams fans to celebrate this specific fandom. A geek fandom. In fact, a specialised geek fandom…

So don’t celebrate Geek Pride Day. Celebrate your geek pride by celebrating your passion when, how, and with whom you choose in a manner appropriate for your geekiness. Here are some ideas:

• March 14: Pi day (3.14) – for Math geeks
• May 4: Star Wars “May the forth be with you” day.
• May 25: Towel Day (2 weeks after the death of Bop Ad), and also Star Wars day (the day the original Star Wars was released. Apparently also it’s a Discworld (of Terry Pratchett) day: The Glorious 25 May
• July 22: Pi day (22/7 = a closer approximation to π  than 3.14)
• September 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day

And… Don’t Panic if you disagree. I’m open to discussion, clarification, and reinspecting my opinions

PS: “Geek Code”? I think that is more correctly this old gem http://www.geekcode.com – for which I have a collection of old codes somewhere, and in fact I’d support it’s re-emergance as a part of the Geek Pride Day, since that would help expand awareness of different elements of geek nature

http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera.html

If you haven’t seen it, then do so now.

If you have, proceed…

So if I can be allowed to blow my own horn for a moment, I’d like to boast that I occasionally seem to have quite marvelous ideas independently or others. Admittedly, others who were lucky enough to think of it earlier enough and/or had resources enough to make something of it. But my claim is that I sometimes think of these things _independently_.

And it has has been said of inventing – the best inventions are obvious, which is why it’s so humbling to remember that one didn’t think of these ‘obvious’ things themselves.

But in my case, can I finally “prove” that I did…?

Back to the video – I’d like to draw your attention to a point approximately 3:45 in: “…time travel. I’m not going to show you some of the wonderful historic imagery in here – there’s some in here with horses and carriages as well [...] it also is the foundation for augmented reality“.

Now compare with an email of mine to a friend, where I wrote this:

What would be kind of cool: augmented reality goggles (this is one of those ideas I had years before I knew there was a word for it) that show recreated historical versions of the world… but, instead of just showing a certain era, you see the ‘prettiest’ building at any given location. Making a best-of-all-possible-eras virtual world

So as far as I can tell (can anyone confirm?), this talk was made on Feb 11 or 12 (based on dated video comments afterwards). My email has a date stamp of: 10 Feb 2010 15:17:07 +1000). And, frankly, even if the video was recorded first, I sure didn’t see it till today

As an aside, my email was prompted by a rather ugly house I see regularly in town, and my own wonderings if it used to be pretty…

• • Contemporary Google maps street view
  • Sometime pre 1994, it was ugly then too
  • Circa 1930s – it was gorgeous.

I especially love how you get basically the same angle on all three – which was, of course, the key to my own inspiration

So clearly, the next thing for me to work out is real time travel – at which point I can begin to start sending these ideas of mine back to people in the past with the resources to make them a reality asap! =)

Regardless..

New years resolutions? Out.
New years goals? In.

So, in three brief categories, here are my goals for 2010

• Location: This year – to live by myself.
• Body: Cut milk from my diet (as a drink, I’m not cutting all diary as food just now), and ensure I exercise enough to maintain current fitness levels or improve.
• Mind: Stay on target with pet projects and complete them

Note: these resolutions earlier appeared as a StatusNet dent here: http://identi.ca/notice/18121538 and were mirrored via twitter here: http://twitter.com/nemothorx/status/7346796530 (they were furthermore mirrored on facebook!)

So. Why can’t we have a voting machine to do this?You choose your preferred policy on a range of issues (healthcare, tax, immigration, environment, education, defence, etc), and at the end it says “you have chosen the . Is this correct?”

And it can even fill in preferences for you (Dear USA. Get preferential voting and the bare minimum. Till then, I cannot respect your so-called ‘democracy’).

Yes, this is far from perfect and full of flaws[12], but really, if Subway can have lunch voting machines (I’d love to see the stats on bread choices in fact), then why is there so much drama about getting one for government?

[12] by far, the biggest issue I can see is showing a lack of bias in determining the party that best matches the selected choices and relative priorities between them. Is this a solved problem? I don’t know.

Many years ago, and for many years in a row, there was a variety comedy show in Australia called Hey Hey it’s Saturday. Initially spontaneous and subversive, it grew over the (28) years into a prime time monster, lost it’s edge, gained an army of followers, and then crumbled in it’s own weight and habits. Having become a shadow of it’s former self and thus, a relic of the past.

Fast forward another  10 years and we have just had a reunion special or two. I had to admit I didn’t watch them. I was not huge fan of what the show had descended into at the end of last century, and if I watched TV enough to even know there was going to be a special, I’d not have bothered watching anyway.

But then something special happened. Controversy!

Controversy?

Yes, in one of the most beloved of Hey Hey regular skits, the ironically named ‘Red Faces’, a group of amateur performers used Blackface to parody the Jackson Five, and specifically, Michael Jackson (performed in whiteface). The sketch was judged by guest Harry Connick Jnr, as being offensively racist, and has stated that if the same occured in America, then the show’s broadcast would have been terminated.

So anyone following any of this probably knows all this already, but it makes good background for those unfamiliar with the situation, due to geographical or chronological distance.

The race is won by…

The sketch in question: The Jackson Jive (youtube)

Now Michael Jackson’s ever-lightening skin tone and other cosmetic surgeries have been the center of COUNTLESS parody for many many years, only overshadowed by his other eccentricities and alleged perversions. This parody used a more sensitive racial jibe than most, that’s all. Blackface was all about white men making themselves look black, and Jackson had famously made himself look white. So it’s not the worlds cleverest parody, nor in the best taste, but beyond that, this is all a storm in a teacup. (someone else can compare this to Robert Downey Jnr‘s performance as a white Australian pretending to be a black American in Tropic Thunder.)

Ok, so that’s as far as most people seem to care.

A couple of comments in the local free rag’s (mX) coverage got me thinking in a few other directions though, and thus this post.

So…

Stepan Kerkyasharian, chair of the Communications Relations Commission, said a joke was racist if it offended any person

To which I say no, not ‘any person’. Cos some people are overly sensitive about a topic, and so will be on a hair trigger and will go off about it if given even the slightest provocation.

Were the men in question racist? I don’t think so. This is a good video to watch on racism in fact, and pointing out racist behaviour to people (It was only coincidence that I had seen this earlier today.)

So, I think their actions were poorly thought out, and they should have realised how it would look. But that’s not my point. Because maybe they did consider, and decided that at the end of the day, they were both parodying Michael through the use of blackface, AND parodying blackface through the use of Mister Jackson in whiteface. Regardless of intent or not, that is not my direction.

This, however, caught my attention

“I am Indian, and five of the six of us are from multicultural backgrounds and to be called a racist… I don’t think I have ever been called that.”

–Dr Deva, plastic surgeon and whiteface performer.

Dr Deva, here is some news: not being a whitefella doesn’t give you a free pass to not think about the racial content of your actions. That is all.

No really, that’s about as much comment as I think it’s really worth. Certainly not the hoopla that has been drummed up by the controversy media. I don’t think Deva is racist, just a bit clueless about being on that side of racial interpretations.

Most interesting to me, however, and that I’ve not heard talked about much at all  (or indeed, any at all), is Mister Jnr’s reaction.

“Censored” is a Dirty Word

Now, if I can be said to have a Cause, it is this:

Censorship.

(I am against it.)

Harry Connick Jnr has stated that if the show was airing in the US, then it would have had its broadcast terminated. It would become “hey, no show”.

So he started it, let’s bring this to Connick’s home turf. Now I realise that technically, the US constitution says nothing about a private company curtailing ones freedom to speak – so a TV station stopping a broadcast has no contitutional protection. But symbolically it’s a bit crap. A bit? No, how about a LOT.

Advocating the curtailing of someone’s speech… is just not acceptable to my eyes.

Parody, incidentally, is protected free speech under the US constitution. I just thought I’d mention that.

So I think it says alot about someone’s mindset that their first instinct is to cut the show. And it says alot about all our cultures that this is NOT what everyone is up in arms about. Let Dr Deva know that his skit could be seen as being offensive by those with a cultural history of American slavery, and be done with it. Frankly, that issue is boring and old.

But do NOT tell me that anyone should not be allowed to perform that skit, if they want to.

Remember, the right to make offensively bad jokes that nobody likes, without being censored, is meant to be a GOOD thing.

Stopping someone from speaking their mind, whatever their opinions and tastes are, is a BAD thing.

Dear Mr Deva. Please remember in the future to consider the way others will interpret your actions.

Dear Mr Connick, Jnr. Please think LONG AND HARD about the real meanings of your words, and what it is you are implying to advocate when you speak without thinking. If you do not, you run the risk of truly looking like a dick.

Dear controversy media. Please get your issues straight.

-Nemo

(BTW, If you are reading this via a facebook note or other site, please link back to the original site via this permalink and consider commenting there also: http://blog.thorx.net/2009/10/hey-hey-its-controversial/ . Thankyou)

I looked at it on the way home. On the back, just three words. “Made in China”

‘Is that un-Australian?’ I thought, as it’s easy to consider the same situation in the USA as being hounded as unpatriotic. But Australian patriotism is more laid back…

It would be, imho, unpatriotic to make a fuss about the minor point of manufacturer of a random poorly made flag. It’s just not the Australian way to care about the manufacturing locale of an item. An item which is in almost any view of the grander scheme of things, a pretty inconsequential point…