500 miles

I would walk 500 miles - kewego
How I met your mother 2.17

Keywords: 500 miles himym

Video from cracotte777

The Comfort Wipe... WTF?!

Thoughts by Jack Handley

Thoughts by Jack Handley

For example:

One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going
to take my nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old
burned-out warehouse. "Oh no," I said, "Disneyland burned down."

He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it was a
pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but
decided to go home instead.

Tricycle Jumping

GetUp's Save the Internet campaign is still going.

GetUp's Save the Internet campaign is still going. It must have prickled Clive Hamilton by the look of his attack on GetUp in this AustralianIT article.

BA

Excavator Love

Baron Sasha Cohen

Can this really be him?


How It Was Supposed To Be (Military Version) from Ryan Leslie on Vimeo.

At 4:22 it looks a bit like him.

eeeeeep

Here it is.

ISP filtering threat in Australia

I filled out this survey. This was my comment but I misread the character count as word count. 250 characters! Why didn't they just say 'We don't give a fuck what you think just answer the white washed, loaded questions."

Parents need to parent their own children instead of expecting the government to wrap them in cotton wool. If parents cannot supervise their children they shouldn't let them go online.

Teenagers are curious about sexual issues and parents shouldn't be so gutless about discussing sex. Is this an extension of America's atrocious abstinence only sex education which has snuck into NSW school system? The internet is a tool, not a baby-sitter.

If people want this kind of filtering they can do it to their own computers. If there was a big demand for this service surely an ISP would have offered it to gain commercial advantage.

I don't care if adults looking at adult content with their own computers in their own time. It is none of my business and it does me no harm. I, like Prof. Catherine Lumby, do not believe the claims that all adult material causes rape and child molestation. We have not seen rape increase at internet take-up rates. Correlation cannot even be show yet causality has been assumed.

The labour government promised to improve internet speeds, not use our limited bandwidth reducing the internet to an under 5 toy. This won't protect children, this will choke the internet to death. I didn't ask for this and I don't want or need it and I definitely didn't vote for it. This is a waste of time and money.

Want More Info?
No Clean Feed
Sean the Blogonaut

Tripod and Eddie Perfect songs:

Tripod:



Eddie Perfect:

IT Crowd

Kiva

Kiva made up this nice little banner. That is much easier than fiddling around doing it myself. This Kiva borrower is growing trees in a nursery... that's gotta be good.

Bubble Wrap

Bubble Wrap

Hubble Images

Hubble images both original and enhanced.

Zorba the Greek Yolngu style

Monkey!

We're watching Series One of Monkey. Fantastic!

This site has lots of quotes.

How much it cost to smoke.

I think a packet of cigarettes costs about AUD15. For the sake of arguement the borrowers would be a couple and, as non-smokers couldn't possibly live with smokers (my bias), let's assume that both borrowers smoke.
Daily cigarette cost each $15
Weekly: $105
Per four weeks: $420
For two people: $840
This gives a figure of $840 per month. Really the average calender month figure is (105*2)*52weeks/12months = $910 but $840 is a more concervative figure so we'll run with it.

Then it is easy enough to work back to the initial principal amount that will repay using my Texas Instruments BAII Plus Calculator.

Payment: -840/month
Interest Cycle: Monthly
Term: 20 years/240 months
Interest rate: 10% (this is a good average home loan rate)

This gives a principal value of $87,044. This is the initial face value of the loan... the amount you have to spend at funding.

So, you can smoke or pay off a home loan of $87k. Obviously, $87k would not buy a house. But it could let you extend or substantially improve a house or buy a bigger/better house.

So, the other way. What happens if you increase the repayments buy $840 per month?

Loan: $350k
Interest rate: 10%
Term: 20 years/240 months
This gives a repayment of $3377 per month.
Interest paid over the term of the loan: $460,616

If this is increased by $840 per month the term will be shortened and interest will be saved.

Loan: $350k
Interest Rate: 10%
Repayment: $4,217 per month

This gives a term of 142 months, less than 12 years.
Total interest is reduced to $247,838 a saving of $212,778.

It is not uncommon for people to start piling money into superannuation once the principle place of residence loan is repaid. With superannuation being a product that gives the best advantage the sooner you start, the saving in time is just as important as the saving of money. Future investment plans may be more along the line of an investment property. It doesn't matter which investment is more to your taste, starting sooner is advantageous.

The Commonwealth Bank has a loan calculator to run numbers. This calculator gives a yearly principal and interest



(Disclaimer: If you are taking advice from blogs you are a goose! Go see a financial planer if you want advice. I'm just running numbers not giving advice. I like numbers.) :)

If you sit by the river for long enough a stupid American will float by.

As far as I can see in this small image, the main problem with this fence is that it doesn't keep Americans in the USA... that really would make the world a better place.

The Dutch town of Drachten has thrown away the traffic sigh.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/04/ntraffic04.xml

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448747,00.html

Youtube 2007 awards.

Illustrated bible stories.

Human Car

A human powered car capable of travelling at open road speeds for thinner Americans.

Phonix Trikes.

A video demonstrating the turning abilities of the Phonix Trike. These things are very cool looking. Really low!



Not sure if this Phoenix Trikes is the same company. They make VW based trikes similar to Bon Trikes.

Silence, the three wheeled electric car:

Killacycle cracks the 8 second mark:

Excellent weird pushbikes:

Cool:


Tall!


Probably more practicle:


The Chinese have adopted electric bikes in huge numbers. Local legislators tried to hold this movement down without success. When a tide of millions of people all move one way it is impossible to stop.

This video shows a conversion of an inexpencive mountain bike into a plug in hyrid.


And off I surf :)

What a picture. It warms my lefty heart to see Downer cross and powerless on the backbench.

Just fun :D

If he's good enough for Amigos de Obama, he's good enough for me... but I don't get to vote... we get to fight in the wars America starts but don't get to vote out the governments that start them.

Original footage of the Hindenburg disaster.

Marina Camila Mijangos Garcia has repaid her loan so I can either withdraw the funds from my Kiva account or relend the money to another budding business person. This is fun!!

So, I'll go and look for someone...

It's easy:
1) Click on "Lend" from the above page.
2) Select any criteria you have. I prefer to lend to mothers rather than fathers cause mothers feed, clothe and educate children, and repay loans. Fathers can be less reliable.
3) Pick someone from the list. Vietnam is a country that deserves our help after we supported the USA in their pointless Vietnam War.
4) Check out their lender. Is their interest rate well below local unsecured lending rates so that my money gives good benefit? Is their repayment rate good so I know that people are learning how to run a good business that will support them and not just living off debt cycles using Kiva like a credit card?
5) If it still looks good, off I go.

Because I am relending the funds I don't need my credit card. The funds already in my Kiva account are sent out. Easy :)

I haven't found a way to make a donation to Kiva for this re-lend of the money. They didn't put a lot of pressure on me for a donation.

I chose Tran Thi Minh from Y Yen, Vietnam:


She is an experienced borrower. Her business is growing so her family's standard of living will be improving. The purpose is sustainable.

Curitiba, Brazil has shown the first world how to create a simple, efficient, environmentally friendly, people friendly, socially responcible city on a shoe string budget.



I first learnt of Jaime Lerner's design of Curitiba on SBS Australia's Dateline.

He has turned his back on urban planning habits favouring livable human cities with parklands, programs to get people out of poverty and inexpencive public transport.

Treehuggers article:
The bus system takes priority over cars. I would imagine that you wouldn't have to see many buses wiz by in their bus lane to get over the need to take your own car into the daily trafic jam. Having a huge, bi-articulated bus on a road with cars would be disasterous but in their bus lanes this would not be a problem.






Wikipedia Article

Exhibit A



Iron of the Maiden

Iron Maiden shreds

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Torn by Johan Lippowitz with Natalie Imbruglia

It's definately better to comment on youtube videos on a blog than in the youtube site where the post size is limited and any comment just gets lost umungst the masses of other comments.

Anonomous have taken on a difficult task. It doesn't matter how many times a church is torn down it only reinforces the followers faith. You can't bring logic into the closed circular arguements offered by religion. There is a gap in the theist's brain that is filled by religion. Atheists are comfortable with this gap and don't yearn to fill it with nonsence. :P

This is an excellent video. The effect of having the monologue read by a computer is great. It sounds really menacing. Well done.

Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.

Don Hirschberg


Don't label me with the shortcomings of your mind.

The Dos and Don't with babies:

Cat Herding

EvilBible offers an outline of Hitler's Catholic upbringing and faith.

Richard Dawkins isn't just a keen athiest. Here he addresses TED.com on the strangeness of science:

This guy has a huge mouth! There are lots of people putting them selves on youtube cause they can do odd things like this.

Some unprecedentedly stupid and disturbing statements by fundamentalist Christians (Fundies). Enjoy.

Eep, the Werecow!
The List of Animals that Never Where.

Pat Condell has lots of good videos.

Moral compass for atheists.

Insane Spy Mic! - The best bloopers are here

DIY Spy Mic

Hundreds of pictures poking fun at religion. :D

Too super cool for a ticket.

Terri Irwin has partnered with the nice pirates at Sea Shepherd to try to stop the Japanese from needlessly killing whales in Australian waters.

Mr Splashy Pants wins the Green Peace Name a Whale competition. I think this will work. Too much of the whale lobby has been all about how beautiful and magestic whales are. Instead this campaign makes whales fun. Imagine how popular Japan will be if the Japanese whaling fleet kills Mr Splashy Pants. Mr Splashy Pants T-shirts and Badges are available at cafepress.

Some Christian groups standing against lunatic fringe christian groups. There needs to be more of this.

Naming a whale.

An oldy but a goody:

Dr. Schambaugh, of the University of Oklahoma School of Chemical Engineering, Final Exam question for May of 1997. Dr. Schambaugh is known for asking questions such as, "why do airplanes fly?" on his final exams. His one and only final exam question in May 1997 for his Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer II class was: "Is hell exothermic or endothermic? Support your answer with proof."

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following:

"First, We postulate that if souls exist, then they must have some mass. If they do, then a mole of souls can also have a mass. So, at what rate are souls moving into hell and at what rate are souls leaving? I think we can safely assume that once a soul gets to hell, it will not leave.

Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for souls entering hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Some of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, then you will go to hell. Since there are more than one of these religions and people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all people and souls go to hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change in volume in hell. Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in hell to stay the same, the ratio of the mass of souls and volume needs to stay constant. Two options exist:

1. If hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter hell, then the temperature and pressure in hell will increase until all hell breaks loose.
2. If hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the quote given to me by Theresa Manyan during Freshman year, "that it will be a cold night in hell before I sleep with you" and take into account the fact that I still have NOT succeeded in having sexual relations with her, then Option 2 cannot be true...Thus, hell is exothermic."

The student, Tim Graham, got the only A.

Urban Exploration
http://www.urban-resources.net/untergunther.html

I did this in Paris.

Walking to the Eiffel Tower I stepped out in front of a car because I looked the wrong way. Lickily it was far enough away for me to react and jump back. Also, it wasn't a North Shore Tractor being driven by a burger crazed American so I was probably much safer.

Wow. The paper is an athiest's field day today.

This just defies all logic. They saw the devil in the eyes of a young family member so they thought they had better scratch and flush him out. I can tell you that if they held me down and started scratching my eyes I would probably start flashing them dirty looks too.

All the religiously infected out there will be saying that they made a mistake and should have read their bible more carefully. If a small amount of religious knowledge lead them to this action, more reading of the bible will just make it worse I think.

Blasphemy, the victimless crime.

In another idiotic religious reaction, Sudanese authorities are holding teacher Gillian Gibbons under threat of 40 lashes for allowing children to name a class teddy bear Muhammed. This is more child abuse in the name of religion. How will children cope with knowing that their decision to name a teddy caused such a punishment.

Setting aside that there is no God, what kind of god could be offended by this and what kind of backward neanderthal could follow such a god. Before the Christians start congratulating themselves remember that this the same god that you follow.

Christians would like to see western Law more in line with biblical law. They want abortion and same sex relationships to be illegal. For athiests, reports such as this are the reason for not wanting religious zealots making laws.

Rubbish!

My latest Kiva borrower is an embroiderer in Peru. The lender has a good track record. Hopefully they'll be able to keep up the good work.

The other loans are ticking along nicely. I've had a few repayments here and there.

The neighbour attached me a while ago asking when I was going to offer myself to Jesus. My answer was that I'm probably never going to do that. My views as a firm atheist were dismissed out of hand resulting in me stating that I thought her religious beliefs are absurd. The whole thing! Sometimes I think it is just a joke then I meet someone who believes these fairy tales. I'm still just shaking my head.

Never discouraged, I think my neighbour is now deermined to see me born again. It would be useful to have me lobotomised first. She has lent me Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins' Left Behind. So far the book has accused the Russians of wanting to nuke Israel with the help of Ethiopia. WTF!

Then they went on about currency mergers. What is this obsession with the one world currency? The US want economic control of the whole world. Success there would be apocalyptic. We would all end up drowning in American lard.

Finally the plot got moving interupted only by a breif journey down computing's memory lane. As the title suggests, this is the world post Rapture. There is much talk of the world failing immediately but I can't help but think that the world would be a happy, peaceful place with the sudden disappearance of 75% of Americans. The endangered cheese burger tree would definately benefit. :))

I'll keep you updated as the adventure continues.

Hot on the heels of this less than pleasant interaction we were in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall and there was a group of zealots singing truely aweful songs about their love of Jesus, ironically accompanied by a 1 metre high poster of Jesus' face mid-crucifiction. Why are these idiots allowed to jam this rubbish down our throats in public? Isn't it bad enough that they waste good land with churchs? How much presence do they want in society?

Anywho, when they sang "Jesus is coming" or some such I yelled in my extra loud voice "No he's not". They sang something else to which I called "You Suck!" Obviously it was not witty but it felt fantastic!

For the religious right who might want to comment, Get Fucked!

Now, amuse yourselves with a new t-shirt.

Justin Monjo! What an article! I think the worm (no, not that worm - the metaphorical worm) has turned. Imagine opinion pieces like this being published during the last election. It just would never have happened. This one is slipping away from the media. They are losing us.

Justin mentions Aldo Leopold's Thinking Like A Mountain. I'm not sure that this is the essay but it looks like the one mentioned. It talks about balance.

Bikes can be great workhorses. I would imagine you would get your money back quickly with fuel savings if you bought a trailer for your bike and left the car at home. With savings on trips to the gym you'd be in front in no time.

Mr Potato Head shows his acting range as a Storm Trooper

and a Transformer

Geothermal Electricity. See, this is why politicians don't understand geothermic production of electricity. Geodynamics are trying to save the world with the help of Australian Ethical Investments.

ManMadePants was understandably pleased to stumble across a fellow who'd taught lizards to recline on a nice little lounge.

Sick of Cheesy motivational posters? These posters tell it like it is.

:))

Kiva.

I've loaned to a husband and wife team this time. Look at the dude in this photo. What a go getter. Grinding mortars and pestles out of rocks. Then Mrs Peang Se takes them off to market. How could I not get behind them in their endeavours? I wonder if I could buy a mortar and pestle off them. They look great. Much heavier and more effective than the toys I've found here in Australia.



I would have liked to have lent to Ke Pich too but her loan was filled before I could get to it.

Jammie Thomas fought the law and the law won. But, it's a lot of money so I've chipped in a few bucks to help her out. USD220,000 isn't a fine, it's life destroying. What about her kids? A USD220,000 fine is really going to ruin Christmas. People shouldn't have their life destroyed over a 2 albums worth of songs. Two albums! What would that be worth, say, USD50? AUD60 or so? Unbelievable! Anyway, help Jammie if you can.

Scary Mary!
Showing once again that most of our fear is of the packaging. :)

Kiva again. Because Oz 7 Lotto has jackpotted again I'm going to buy a ticket. So, that means it's time to lend some more money on Kiva. This is a strange rule but at least thsi means that gambling is doing someone some good. The Kiva account is way ahead of the gambling account. I am 98% sure of getting all of my money back with Kiva. With Lotto the chances of getting any money back at negligible.

I've lent to this lady because she is building up her business to contribute to the long term viability of her family. I would imagine that her children would be grownups by now. I hope that Nazkhanim's good borrowing habits will teach her children how to borrow well in the future.

Rhoades Car

I always like a wierd pushbike. These bikes really push the boundries.

Some poor dude who can't show his face:

MARINA CAMILA MIJANGOS GARCIA

Jeremías López Cruz

These are my previous loans:
Teina Teuila

I've made another loan via Kiva. I like this idea because it gives people with a bit of get up and go a chance to make their lives better. This is the 5th loan I've made. A small amount of the money has been repaid.



So, because this is a commercial loan, I've developed a few rules for my lending:
. the lender is allowed to take some interest as long as they are substantially below the local lenders. The local lenders are often little better than loan sharks.
. the loan has to be for sustainable practices. For example: I avoided a loan for agricultural chemicals as I believe that farmers should keep more traditional agricultural practices and permaculture principles. Introducing chemical fertilisers and pesticides will cause dependency. I want to fund independence.
. the lender has to have a nil delinquency rate. This indicates that they select borrowers carefully. I want to encourage fiscally astute people, not give a gift.

I prefer to lend to women with children because:
. if a woman with children borrows money to grow their business they will use all of that money for that purpose.
. if, on the other hand, you lend to a single man he will celebrate first and use the remainder for the business.
. women are often discriminated against fiscally. I want to level the playing field a little. I can only save my little bit of the world.
. in countries where women do not enjoy equallity, children suffer greatly if the father is gone and the mother is unable to earn a good living.

Our motorhome. We've done about 10,000 kms since Sept 06. It is fantastic! :D

Jail Paris Hilton. Yaaaaaay! She claims that she wasn't aware of her loss of licence. This doesn't explain why she was driving at 70mph, 45mph over the limit without headlights in the dark. I agree with petitions (here, here) calling for Ms Hilton to serve the sentence. Her fame is dependant on hoards of impressionable people. Enforcing this sentence might be the very best impression they could get. I look forward to abuse from Paris Addicts.

Bird lungs are amazing. I had an idea that they didn't work like human lungs but I had no idea! It's similar to the circular breathing required for didgeridoo with the air flowing constantly though one area while other areas fill and empty... obviously completely different but I saw the similarity. Remember, I only have to please myself.

From a speech said to have been given by Bill Gates at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

If you can read this - Thank a teacher!

Honda has re-worked the passenger car diesel engine and come up with some major improvements. One startling outcome is the ad. :)

Oh yeah!

Discipline is being able to recognize that even though the setups
are skewed toward moving in a given direction more times than not,
there are times when they are not going to move.

Don Miller

No, it appears that this is just blogger's way of spamming users... oh well, I suppose they have to get satisfaction out of the free blogs they offer so they are seeking the dubious satisfaction of annoying people with spam. :P

In an exciting new twist for my blog, someone appears to have read it! Jordon's comments here...

I've got a Yahoo! mailbox. Until this day I didn't know that they were data mining. Fortunately, Yahoo! allows you to opt out of this data mining. So, head on over to Yahoo! Privacy and remove the cookie if you don't want Yahoo! to know where you surf. :)

The good folks at Angry Alien have just release a tribute to It's a Wonderful Life.
Don't forget to chip in a few bucks for bandwidth.

Did Hot Black Dessiatu's ship (that was so black) have a name?

Who am I quoting?
"To coldly place the pursuit of profit above all other considerations is to be indifferent to all notions of humanity."
My mother wrote this on a piece of paper and stuck it to the wall near the kitchen 20 years ago and I still remember it. Was it a quote or did she come up with it? :)

JFK Reloaded:
What I really like about this game is that it has really upset plenty of Americans. With many of the top 50 scores being from Americans the public obviously is not nearly as offended as their representatives.

An excellent sculpture.

Because everyone has time to kill, have a go at being God.

This is my first picture post using Bloggerbot. 

Puppy Curling.

I always liked the magic eye stuff and I know 3D photography is nothing new but I liked these photos and here they are...