Open finding avoided

A bold finding in a baffling case:

A coroner has concluded that a British spy whose naked body was found padlocked in a bag in his bathtub was probably unlawfully killed...

She told the inquest she was “satisfied” that “a third party moved the bag containing Gareth into the bath” in his London flat.

“I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Gareth was killed unlawfully,” she said.

Yet there’ll undoubtedly be those who’d prefer to wait until all the facts are in.

—READ MORE—

News beat

Walking by The Age building in the city this evening, I almost blundered into the path of a media scrum, covering some obviously Topical Dude (even if I knew who was who, I couldn’t get a good look who he was) as he tried to make his way along the sidewalk to his parked car.

I looked back to see a cameraman had positioned himself in the traffic lane to get an ‘exclusive’ shot of ‘Topical Dude through car window.’

We so need those.

—READ MORE—

What the ’k’n’ell’s been happening with Knut?

Knut, the polar bear born in captivity at the Berlin zoo in December 2006, is in the news again.

The evil Left, having failed to have him assassinated when he was a newborn cub, now wants to have him castrated, apparently to forestall the consequences of Knut’s canoodling with a female bear who’s his near cousin.

It’s certainly been a roller coaster ride for the poor little Knut in his short life to date. As well as being constantly and mercilessly anthropomorphised, he’s been threatened with death, suffered personality disorders from unrestrained adulation, and been criticised for not being as cute as when he was a baby.

With this latest threat, Knut faces the prospect of knowing he’s somewhat less than the bear he used to be.

And of never knowing the joys of fatherhood (which, for polar bears, sometimes involves slaughtering and cannibalising defenceless bear cubs; but let’s not go there).

How much can a polar bear?

’K’n’oath, there’s only so much!!

—READ MORE—

Weird Building Friday

As my cousin Jack remarked on the weekend when I showed him this photo...

It’s no mean feat to begin with a nice, clean sheet of paper and wind up drafting something like this.

Amsterdam, January 1981
imarge by jarcob
transferred from original kodachrome

—READ MORE—

How to avoid being blown out of the sky

Maybe this has been around for a while and I’ve missed it, but here’s a neat variation on the ‘false causality’ conundrum:

I asked a statistician about the odds of travelling on a plane where someone had brought a bomb on board.

He said about a million to one. Not good odds.

When asked about the odds of two people bringing a bomb on the same plane, the odds were significantly different: 1.6 billion to one.

So now, whenever I travel by air, I carry a bomb.

—READ MORE—

No matter how you dress it up...

Windows Millenium Edition™ will always be a dog of a product!

—READ MORE—

Scales fallen from eyes

At work this week an analyst came in to consult with users on our needs in relation to a super-duper new management information system.

At one point she remarked that the locus of system problems often occurs “between the chair and the keyboard.”

We errant users gnashed our teeth and were fairly blown away by this radical new conceptual framework in which to consider human interaction with computers: Don’t think of them as staff, think of them as CKIUs — Chair/Keyboard Interface Units.

Meanwhile, a pundit interviewed this week on Lateline helpfully illumined the present troubles in Afghanistan with a gynaecological analogy: “You can’t make a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Yep, it’s all clear to me now!

By the way, I believe that particular gyno-analogy was originally minted by Warren Buffet in relation to US President Obama’s economic stimulus initiatives. A very useful meme which undoubtedly will be deployed again and again to illuminate the ineffable.

Finally, I was dazzled by a tv program Thursday night on ABC1 called “Web Warriors.” The program reported earnestly on a computer worm virus that, although “undetectable”, was confidently asserted to have infected millions of PCs all around the world.

A stunning work of investigative journalism, to be sure!

—READ MORE—

Straight to the poolroom

... and I’m not even going to take it out of the wrapper.

No 2 Niece was in London around the time of my birthday earlier this month, spotted this little collectable and decided she must get it for her Unca. Clearly, it’s a must-have for ‘Boomers at my time of life.

A sweet thought and I’ll treasure it forever, naturally.

Only thing is that I can’t work out the connection of a black double-decker bus with the Beatles’ immortal Abbey Road album. Such a vehicle doesn’t appear in the album artwork. And anyway, aren’t London buses red?

Perhaps the black bus is another clue in the Paul Is Dead mythology...?

—READ MORE—

Groundhog Friday

September 1997...

Netanyahu wanted Palestinians to accept just half of the disputed West Bank, along with the continued existence of most of the controversial Israeli settlements. He now believed that the Palestinian Authority should be no more than a quasi-state, like Puerto Rico or Andorra; that it should have neither arms nor an army; and that Israel should retain control of its borders, air space, and precious water resources. Finally, on the volatile issue of Arab control of Jerusalem, Netanyahu believed Palestinians should be grateful if he permitted a new entity whereby they might be allowed to look after the Muslim holy places in the disputed city.

• Paul McGeough, Kill Khalid, Ch 10

June 2009...

Netanyahu threw down the gauntlet to the US last night, grudgingly agreeing to a limited Palestinian state that would be demilitarised and not in control of its airspace or borders. The hawkish Prime Minister insisted that Israel would never give up a united Jerusalem as its capital, and said that established Jewish settlements in the West Bank would continue to expand...

• Times Online

—READ MORE—

Troubleshooting MS Office Assistant

1. The Problem.

2. The Solution.

3. Application.

4. Continue working.

—READ MORE—

from the vault

Activists of the mid-1970s Australian clandestine CB radio movement gather at a secret location. The gentleman on the right, Tony X, had bright career prospects in the electronics industry so wished to protect his identity. The gentleman second-from-left, Ross X (not related), was given to living on the edge and wore his heart on his beloved Austin A-40.

 

The Young Guitarist’s Progress
Pete (right) at McLaren Vale, SA, c. 1984.

 

Irreverence at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, c. 1977.

—READ MORE—

chokes on weeties

This idiotic ad campaign for Kellogg’s Sustain™ has been around for a while now.

It’s been very effective because I’m completely persuaded not to buy the shit, if only to discourage media ‘professionals’ from producing any more of such drivel.

Little wonder the GFC, when there’s an army of people doing this kind of nonsense who could otherwise be employed in productive work.

Er... speaking of which, I’ve got some things to do...

—READ MORE—

Hour of gesture

Central Sydney fails to dim in any meaningful way

While the Muftim cheers on his followers in their collective act of rugged individualism, here in Melbourne’s South Eastern Growth Corridor I’ve been trying to hear myself think — above the unremitting roar and hoonery of traffic from the nearby arterial — about the symbolism and efficacy of tonight’s Earth Hour.

Neighbours up the street have coloured lights blazing all around the front of their house... and they have a bunch of young kids whose future is supposedly at stake!

Streetlights burn imperturbably, neon shopfronts bathe their surrounds in solicitous illumination, while yonder the local railway station remains floodlit, presumably as a concession to concerns that customers may stumble blindly off the platform into the path of scheduled trains, running as usual powered by coal-fired electricity.

The futility of the gesture is as much a collective wank as the Muftim’s vaunted ‘hour of power’. Seeing as there’s a widely agreed problem, perhaps folks should be burning the midnight oil writing letters to the papers or their MPs — at least, doing something useful given the privilege of the ability to banish darkness.

—READ MORE—

Our newest Dark Knight – the ‘Phantom Expander’

Police in New Zealand’s Gotham City Blenheim are on the lookout for the Phantom Expander:

A local who has labelled himself the ‘The Phantom Expander’ has been roaming the streets filling car exhausts with [builders’] foam which hardens and stops hoons in their tracks.

The editor of the Marlborough Express in the South Island city of Blenheim, Lance Dodd, says the ‘Phantom’ has it in for hoons.

He’s the hero Blenheim deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So they’ll hunt him because he can take it. Because he’s not their hero; he’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.

—READ MORE—

He’s still out there somewhere

The blurb for this youtube goes:

One of my friend’s from work and her friend were out one night in the SF Marina district and were hanging outside of the bars trying to find a cab. One of the girl’s, Olga, ends up meeting this guy Dmitri and they talk for at the most 2 minutes. She hands him her business card and says call me. This is the actual voicemail that this guy left her.

View on... Chilling!!

Dimitri the stud  —  view at youtube

—READ MORE—

case study

Syd Barrett (an artist)  —  image source

Illustrating the principle that most days it’s not worth not getting out of bed of a morning, artist Duggie Fields recounts the disintegration of his former flatmate Syd Barrett, who was a co-founding member of ‘legendary’ rock band Pink Floyd:

I think he spent quite a while lying in bed. I used to be in the next room and I’d be painting... And I knew he was lying in bed sort of thinking — my [speculative] interpretation was that he was thinking — that, while he lay there, he had the possibility of doing anything in the world that he chose. But the minute he made a choice, he was limiting his possibilities. So he lay there as long as he could — so he had this unlimited future! But, of course, that’s a very limited present, when you do that, and a very depressing one ultimately.

• interviewed for the film The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story (Otmoor Productions Limited, 2003)

Still, surely that kind of thing can’t hurt in moderation. So maybe next time you have a lie-in and arrive late for work, tell your employer it was imperative for you to maximise your possibilities. If you have a heartless philistine of a boss who just doesn’t get it, maybe it’s time to move on...?

Duggie Fields (an artist)  —  screencap by jarcob

—READ MORE—

Blogging - by invitation only...

This blog is open to invited readers only

http://avatarbriefs.blogspot.com/

It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.

No, indeed it doesn't. Well I'll be. I'd no idea Caz had become hi-falutin' selective.

Perhaps I am no longer of the correct Ilk. I realise I haven't been about much with Christmas rush, holidays and - ostensibly - writing pieces for publication. Still, I hadn't thought that I'd actually logged off so to speak.

Use it or lose it eh?

Interesting that one is instructed to "contact the blog author" if this is a mistake, though there is no method of so doing without accessing the blog.

Perhaps, when I eventually find enough time and energy, I will finish this writing stuff and get something published. I will, of course, have to publish it as "invitation only":

You are not invited to read this book. Should you feel that you are sufficiently interested and have the necessary educational background for this work, please feel free to contact the author /
publisher.

—READ MORE—