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Sweet! I bet you could have all kinds of fun w/ enough of those fans and a little brainstorming…

A slow-paced YYY’s number, but there’s no proper video for Way Out, so I’m going with this one.

Definitely best heard w/ headphones in the dark…

I just got my first ever smartphone the other day, a HTC Desire – and it’s absolutely gorgeous! Picked it up on Telstra in the AU on a $50 (~25 quid) 24 month contract that gives me $400 of calls and texts, plus 200MB of data, and the phone for free. I know the data side is a bit low, but Telstra have the best coverage and fastest mobile network in the AU, and I could always throw in an extra $10 a month to double it to 400MB. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I’m going to be downloading an awful lot with it, it’ll just be nice to be able to check my mail, browse a few websites etc while I’m on the move, so 200MB should be plenty.

The version I got is a Telstra branded HTC Desire (A8183 model) which is currently running Android 2.1 with Sense UI – and it’s an absolute pleasure to use; pretty to look at, fast & responsive, and does pretty much everything I could possibly ask of it, but Android 2.2 isn’t officially out for it yet, so I’m going to root that bad-boy and stick on a DeFroST or DJ DROID Android 2.2 (froyo) ROM, which’ll give me tethering, wireless hotspot capability, save and run apps from the microSD card instead of the phone memory etc. Should be good, if I can get it all to work!

I’ll make sure to document the rooting/mod process using my own particular brand of x-ray pedantry, too =D

Awesome, awesome phone – couldn’t be happier

Sweet nerdcore goodness from Frontalot’s new album: Zero Day =D

I recently used this text in a class on creative and critical thinking, and found that I rather liked what Sir Murdoch had to say, and how he went about saying it, so thought I’d share…

Often, in the course of my regrettably miscellaneous reading, I become conscious of a mysterious force, a sinister influence, a hidden and hostile something, for which writers are always trying to find a name and never quite succeeding, and with which, whether they can name it or not, they are always in conflict. It is the enemy, not only of literature, but of all the other arts as well; it is, in fact, the enemy of civilisation. According to my reading of history, this something has worked so consistently against the healthy development of the race, has been so consistently a clog on all progress towards the bettering of the world, that I feel perfectly justified in calling it a disease. If the doctors fail to agree upon its name, its causes, its symptoms, and its treatment – well, it is not the only ailment of which that can be said. Let us, provisionally, call it respectability…

Respectability has many virtues, but they are the meaner virtues, the timid virtues, caution, prudence, docility, tameness, discretion. All the brave, adventurous virtues are regarded by this dingy goddess as silly or dangerous, or both. Proposals for reform are not blocked by the bad people, but by the dull. Those who think our present economic conditions unsatisfactory sometimes think they are opposed by a gang of scoundrels so depraved that they really wish to keep us all poor. There is no such gang. There are not enough scoundrels to go round; the vast majority of mankind are kindly and well meaning. The persons we have to face are the dull, the stodgy, the unimaginative, the ancestor-worshippers, too timid to think for themselves, the persons who look at any suggestion of change with the expression of cows looking at a passing train. My own hope is still in education, in spite of many disillusionments. My hope is that some day teachers will impress upon their pupils the solemn duty of not accepting ready-made the beliefs of others, of not swallowing them unquestioningly as a child might swallow a pill given it by its mother. One had to put one’s beliefs on a foundation of sincerity before they are worthy to be called beliefs at all; and my hope is that some day education will train children for the real duty of life, which is to think for oneself and to act for oneself, and not to be one of the lifeless automata which make up the serried ranks of respectability.

Well put, no? After reading this, the students were asked to put forward arguments either for or against the following statement:

Education helps individuals grow and has a civilising and humanising influence on society as a whole.

So, what do you think?