The blog of slark (it was bound to happen eventually...)

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU

2010-06-19T17:17:00.002+10:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!‽‽‽???

2010-01-01T09:55:00.003+11:00

Runaway inflation in the U.S. would be the ultimate disaster. Think about all those people who have dollars set aside, which is to say the prudent middle class; they’ll be totally wiped out. Even huge corporations that have massive cash reserves, like Microsoft and McDonald’s, if they don’t hedge that cash with the utmost skill, could find those hoards wiped out and themselves bankrupted as well. Remember that people all over the world are holding U.S. dollars. There’s far more U.S. currency outside the U.S. than there is inside the U.S., and all those foreigners are going to resent it personally and hold it against Americans when their U.S. dollars are wiped out. On top of that, most central banks around the world hold U.S. dollars as their main asset, and that will be wiped out as well. It’s going to be a complete, worldwide disaster. It’s going to be much worse than what happened in Germany or Zimbabwe. This is a couple orders of magnitude greater seriousness and it seems to me that this is almost certain to happen with a monumentally stupid person like Bernanke steering the ship of state into a reef.

Why does copyright law have to be so idiotic?

2009-12-15T09:53:00.001+11:00

I don't think fighting to the death is the point of yoga...

2009-11-22T13:58:00.002+11:00

bring it on

2009-09-15T09:53:00.004+10:00

Dr Joe Flood, the [Flinders University Institute for Housing, Urban and Regional Research] adjunct professor, said the "the writing is on the wall for the 'Australian dream'."

"The country that promised limitless land, cheap housing and near universal home ownership to all comers now has the most expensive housing in the world amid very tight housing and land markets and little prospect of restoring the balance," Dr Flood said.

"As long as the Government, the public and the media remain in denial, and self-congratulatory rhetoric continues that Australia has cleverly avoided the housing market correction it needed to have, there is little chance that matters will improve.

"The only ways that this would happen are through a US-style price collapse or a complete re-evaluation of the situation and a coordinated effort by governments, planning and financial institutions to restore the balance between housing supply and demand - or tax away the imbalance - so that all Australians may benefit."

Dr Flood and his team assessed Census data to conclude that Australia's housing market is in "a very dangerous and unstable situation which has received little adverse attention".

The researchers found that after 1996, average house prices increased by three times on average - to around 6.8 times medium household income - and debt levels surged.

"On the one hand Australia is vulnerable to a collapse like the United States, where prices fell by a half during the sub-prime collapse ... or to a long slow decline as in Japan since 1988," Dr Flood said.

Source: House prices 'need US-style collapse'

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOMBOOMBOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I dreamed a dream that I didn't live in a soul-destroying culture (that is heading for collapse anyway so fuck it)

2009-04-20T06:20:00.005+10:00

I really, really, REALLY hate the editing on these clips. Just show the woman singing, maybe with a cut or 2 to the crowd. But we saw more crowd/judges/backstage than we saw singing. Whoever edits for this show is a retard.

Well if the audience hadn't been screaming like banshees from note one, I might've been able to enjoy her voice. Really, how rude is that? If you want to hear the woman sing, it's best to close your gob and listen. Screaming like a mindless lout is not the best way to appreciate talent.

I can't stand how people react to stuff like this. Everyone gets all inspired and sad because basically - an ugly/common person can sing well - same with Paul Potts.

Now I'm not insulting her at all - she does indeed have an amazing voice. Nor do I resent her for being a rather ordinary looking person. It is the fact that the ONLY unique thing about her is she is ordinary looking.

And why should it be so inspiring that she has a good voice even when SHOCK HORROR she's ugly!! It's a sick observation of our society that people look at an ugly person and automatically think that they will be untalented and/or about to make a fool of themselves.

Downvote me if you wish, but it is total ug-sploitation junk. Look at the editing techniques in this clip and the inspiring backing music toward the end.

All Hope is not Abandoned, Ye Who Enter Here

2009-04-19T14:38:00.003+10:00

The Pirate Bay verdict is being criticized by the Swedish public and protests are being planned. Opposition to the decision is widespread, indicated partly by the surge in new memberships to Sweden’s Pirate Party. It has seen its ranks grow by 20% in the handful of hours since the verdict and the number of members is increasing by the minute.

More than thousand people have gathered in the streets of the Swedish capital Stockholm today, to protest against yesterday’s Pirate Bay verdict. The demonstration was organized by the Swedish Pirate Party that is campaigning for the European Parliament elections in June.

don't mention the war

2009-03-14T17:19:00.001+11:00

CNBC, MSNBC, NBC, but mostly BS

Good Night, and Good Luck.

CNBC but mostly BS (part 3)

2009-03-13T19:39:00.000+11:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Intro - Brawl Street: Get Read to Buy Low! And Sell Die

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 1

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 2

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Jim Cramer Interview Outtake Pt. 3

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

CNBC but mostly BS (part 2)

2009-03-12T14:13:00.003+11:00

Broadcast 2009-03-10:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish '09

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

I think it's important to see what Stewart is doing here.

He's not criticizing Cramer and Co from CNBC because they were wrong - there's plenty of people who are wrong.

He's going after them because:

1. They claim to represent "the heartland" of the American public (see the Santelli rant), when they really only represent a very specific cross section of mostly male, mostly white, and almost entirely wealthy people.

2. The hypocrisy - this is probably Stewart's #2 button to push about people. He can't stand it, so when you've got people on CNBC going on about the "losers" who "caused all of the problems in the economy" or the "the Obama administration who's ruining everything" - all the while almost pointedly ignoring the billions that the financial markets received because of their own actions, then Stewart is going to shine a giant flashlight on their double standard.

3. The lying. This is usually Stewart's #1 button that just gets him going more than anything else. If you lie, he will go out of his way to destroy you. So when Cramer goes on about "Oh, I didn't tell people to buy Bear Sterns", Stewart has no problem saying "You liar." When the guys on CNBC go on about how wise they are, and how well they know everything, Stewart isn't mad about them being wrong - he's mad about them lying about it.

4. And finally, the media. I think of all the targets that Stewart and Colbert go after, the media is probably one of their favorite. Again, he's not so much mad about CNBC being wrong about the former bubble - but for going out of their way to promote the bubble. Daily Show has made a point of going after reporters for being a bunch of wimps when questioning the former and the current administration, too scared of giving up "access" instead of looking to find out the "truth". So while the CNBC guys were softballing CEO's that, with any amount of homework, could be seen as lying and, in Standford's case, operating a ponzi scheme, rather than being directly challenged with real, earnest reporting that so-called "experts" in financial matters should have done, the CNBC crew all but licked the balls of the oh-so powerful CEO's they invited on - because if they didn't, they feared not being allowed to talk to them again.

From what I've seen of Stewart, this is an unpardonable sin. The media's job isn't to be a friend to the powerful or the famous, but question them, push them, research the facts and when there is a contradiction between fact and statements, point that out.

Personally, I hope Stewart does to CNBC what he did to that horrible Crossfire show. Sure, CNN replaced it with another, but at least for a shining moment, Stewart revealed that the Emperor really had no clothes, and made people start to think again about what they were doing.

The fact he made Tucker Carlson look like a dick in the process was just gravy.

Source

CNBC but mostly BS (part 1)

2009-03-11T11:46:00.005+11:00

Broadcast 2009-03-04:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Broadcast 2009-03-09:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

red==stop green==go

2009-03-02T16:22:00.003+11:00

ACCESS DENIED

ACCESS GRANTED

But I would block ten thousand websites

2008-11-13T23:45:00.005+11:00

Internet filter to block 10,000-plus "unwanted" sites

And I would block ten thousand more

Just to be the man who would block ten thousand websites

To fall down for having the worst Communications Minister we've had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOMBOOMBOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

2008-11-09T09:30:00.015+11:00

Published 2006-02-21:
“An invaluable book . . . Today’s real estate markets are booming and Lereah makes a convincing case for why the real estate expansion will continue into the next decade. This book should prove to be a truly practical guide for any household looking to create wealth in real estate.” — Dewey Daane, Former Governor of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors

“An important book, whether you agree with the author (as I do) that housing will remain an excellent investment or are convinced that home prices are poised for a plunge, David Lereah lays out a compelling vision of housing as a continuing positive investment—and how you can profit from real estate if you already own the home you live in, are looking to move from rental housing to an owner-occupied home, or want to use real estate as an investment.” — David Berson, Chief Economist, Fannie Mae

2008-10-05:
The bars and restaurants of Iceland's capital are packed, the Range Rovers and BMWs are parked nose to tail all along the streets of the central 101 district, and music is pumping from a black stretch Hummer limousine cruising by.

2008-11-07:
A day before General Motors (GM) was expected to report a nearly $4 billion loss for its latest quarter, top executives of GM, Ford, Chrysler, and the United Auto Workers union came to Washington to press their case for at least $25 billion in federal loans. Without the help, the car companies argued, they may not survive 2009.

2008-11-08:
Overnight, people lost their savings. Prices are soaring. Once-crowded restaurants are almost empty. Banks are rationing foreign currency, and companies are finding it dauntingly difficult to do business abroad. Inflation is at 16 percent and rising. People have stopped traveling overseas. The local currency, the krona, was 65 to the dollar a year ago; now it is 130. Companies are slashing salaries, reducing workers’ hours and, in some instances, embarking on mass layoffs. “No country has ever crashed as quickly and as badly in peacetime,” said Jon Danielsson, an economist with the London School of Economics.

The rate of collapse is bound to increase, with new chasms opening up daily...Switzerland and Great Britain could easily turn into new Icelands: Swiss banks' short-term liabilities are now 13 times greater than the country's GDP; Iceland's were only five times bigger.

Sources:
Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust - And How You Can Profit from It
The party's over for Iceland, the island that tried to buy the world - The Observer
Automakers to Washington: It's Crunch Time - BusinessWeek
Stunned Icelanders Struggle After Economy’s Fall - The New York Times
Will the Great Crash Hit After November 17? - Executive Intelligence Review

no more waiting

2008-11-05T16:38:00.003+11:00

Rosa sat so Martin could walk...
Martin walked, so Obama could run...
Obama is running so our children can fly

Slacker Uprising unauthorized online dissemination

2008-10-04T09:07:00.003+10:00

Legal Crackdown Jams Michael Moore's Slacker Uprising | The Underwire from Wired.com
FWRV Law Firm: Contact Us - Entertainment, Matrimonial, and Corporate/SEC Law

I e-mailed this .png to Neil J. Rosini :)

Internet censorship resistance gains momentum

2008-09-13T11:52:00.006+10:00

The Australian - ISP filtering gains momentum
THE federal Government's plan to implement content filters at the internet service provider level is one step closer to reality with live trials set to commence after next month.

Delivered-To: slark1@gmail.com Received: by 10.100.133.5 with SMTP id g5cs48900and; Sat, 1 Mar 2008 21:48:34 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.142.221.19 with SMTP id t19mr8130523wfg.62.1204436913608; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:48:33 -0800 (PST) Return-Path: Received: from primecav01.intellicentre.net.au (primecav01.intellicentre.net.au [210.193.176.13]) by mx.google.com with ESMTP id 22si23536505wfg.15.2008.03.01.21.48.32; Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:48:33 -0800 (PST) Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 210.193.176.13 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of autoreply@pm.gov.au) client-ip=210.193.176.13; Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 210.193.176.13 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of autoreply@pm.gov.au) smtp.mail=autoreply@pm.gov.au Received: from primecav01.intellicentre.net.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by localhost.intellicentre.net.au (Postfix) with SMTP id 321EBDEC47 for ; Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:48:31 +1100 (EST) Received: from prime001 (pm.gov.au [210.193.176.19]) by primecav01.intellicentre.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8880DEC05 for ; Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:48:30 +1100 (EST) Message-ID: <15780798.1204436910704.JavaMail.SYSTEM@prime001> Date: Sun, 2 Mar 2008 16:48:30 +1100 (EST) From: autoreply@pm.gov.au To: slark1@gmail.com Subject: Prime Minister's Website Feedback [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: ColdFusion MX Application Server Site Feedback --------------------------- Thank you for your feedback or enquiry to the Web Administrator of the Prime Minister's Website. Below is a copy of your feedback. If you have made an enquiry, the Web Administrator may contact you or may pass on your enquiry to another area within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet for a response. This is an automatically generated email. Please do not reply to this email as this address is not monitored. If you have any problems with this service please contact the Web Administrator though the details provided at http://www.pm.gov.au/feedback/ --------------------- Copy of your comments ------------------------ Name: Stephen Lark Email Address: slark1@gmail.com Subject: Technical problem with this website Comment: On http://pm.gov.au/team/cabinet.cfm link "More about Kevin Rudd" currently goes to http://pm.gov.au/your_pm/biography.cfm , which results in a 404. "More about Kevin Rudd" should link to http://pm.gov.au/your_pm/index.cfm instead. BTW, apparently there is now Internet censorship in Australia. Whatever is implemented, it will be circumvented, and I will help make it happen, and encourage others to do so: http://slark1.googlepages.com/internetcensorship ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sleek Geeks review on iTunes Store

2008-08-16T14:59:00.006+10:00

dunno if the powers that be at iTunes Store published this review, probably not...

This is the first time I've ever used iTunes Store for downloading any sort of video (and I've only ever bought the grand sum total of one music track FWIW). It will most likely be my last. What a joke - compared to YouTube or Google Video (with DownloadHelper) or BitTorrent this DRM-laden crap sucks big time. (BTW I easily defeated the DRM using Screenflick). This 25 minute video took hours to download on my connection - I don't think Apple has the cloud infrastructure for this sort of thing - look what happened when the 3G iPhone came out. Also can I copy the file WHICH I JUST PAID THREE BUCKS FOR to one of my non-Apple devices? Can I share this file with any of my friends? Not unless I want to live in fear of The CopyRight Police2008 SP1(tm). Funny, I thought the ABC was a public broadcaster..

And then there is the actual content.

Professor Julius Sumner Miller did NOT make stupid jokes every ten seconds like Adam Spencer, or is it Adam Sandler? Hard to tell the difference... They are equally obnoxious IMO. I am reminded of the scene in Reality Bites where Ben Stiller's character explains that TV has to be delivered to The Yoof of Today in tasty little morsels like feeding a baby - "Here come's the plane! Here come's the plane! brooowwwwwmmmmmmmmm".

Dr. Karl is okay though, but he would be bettertonottalkreallyREALLYfastinordertocraminthemaximimumamountofinformationinaminimumamountoftime.

Gimme Mythbusters or Brainiac anyday of the week and twice on Sunday (RIP).

0 stars (I wish).

ignorance is strength

2008-07-15T10:57:00.004+10:00

If Fannie and Freddie are left to die out on the desert floor, say goodbye to the housing market, the major investment banks, countless regional banks, the retirement accounts of virtually everyone in America, the viability of all fifty states' governments, and the day-to-day operating ability of all their municipalities -- and very likely the current incarnation of the world banking system.

May you die today so that I die tomorrow

2008-07-12T18:36:00.006+10:00

For the first time in history the entire world was looking at the failure of a major financial institution that could lead to a run on the entire world financial system.

There was a reason this was leaked, and the reason is simple: someone wanted us to go down, and go down hard.

Bringing Down Bear Stearns - Vanity Fair
The Five Stages of Collapse - Dmitry Orlov

c u l8ter billieboy

2008-06-29T05:28:00.004+10:00

HOWTO Pie

Steve Ballmer egged at Hungarian University

I love the nightlife, I got to boogie

2008-06-26T22:14:00.004+10:00

on the disco 'round

oh yea

RIP George

2008-06-24T12:16:00.000+10:00

http://del.icio.us/slark/theunitedstatesisfucked

The Fast Assholes and the Furious Stupid

2008-04-13T06:15:00.005+10:00

Loud vehicle exhaust & engine noises (and especially boom cars) are the sonic equivalent of graffiti:

Whether or not it says so in so many words, the fuck you message is implicit in the use of graffiti as communication. The medium itself implies alienation, discontentment, marginality, repression, resentment, rebellion: no matter what it says, graffiti always implies a "fuck you". Though addressing the larger society in this contemptuous manner may be a secondary or even tertiary element of the graffiti writer's agenda, this element always lurks in the background of every graffito on every wall.
source
discussion on Boing Boing

NY Times: Former Fed Chief Says System at Risk of Cascading Breakdown

2008-04-12T17:48:00.005+10:00

via Life After the Oil Crash Breaking News - Finance, the Economy - Friday April 11th, 2008

New York Times - It’s a Crisis, and Ideas Are Scarce

As the credit crisis has slowly expanded and worsened, there has been a flurry of activity in Washington to reduce the damage from it. There are bailouts and tax breaks, and even checks to parents of school-age children. But there is remarkably little action aimed at getting the credit system functioning again. In part, that is because there is a scarcity of ideas.

<elitist integralite>well duh</elitist integralite>