Blag o' dkam

Found this clip on a Wired blog. Pretty cool.

Ever feel you need a bit of help disco dancing? Here’s a clip from the 70s to help you out. This guy’s dancing school is still running! It’s the most famous dance school in Finland.

Check it:

I love the idea of TED. “Ideas worth spreading”. Clips of the talks or presentations are available. They seem to be between 5 — 20 minutes long. They vary quite a bit in topics from how ants organise their nests to how we can defeat ageing.

You can browse topics like Why we age and how we can avoid it. or A surprising idea for solving Climate Change, or you can browse by speakers, such as Steven Pinker and Larry Lessig.

Some very interesting talks by very smart people with engaging ideas if you’ve got the time.

I ordered a box set of DVDs for mum for Christmas. When I ordered them the site told me that it should be delivered before December 24th — but as this was an international delivery, the estimate jumped up to December 28th. I don’t remember if this new delivery date was shown to me before I paid for the DVDs, but it was certainly there after payment. Well, that was a little disappointing, but not completely unreasonable.

The 28th came and went with no DVDs delivered, so on the 6th of Jan, I emailed Amazon to ask where my package was, as it still hadn’t arrived. They agreed that something must have gone wrong and immediately, without question, shipped another £50 box set of DVDs to me. Excellent customer service there.

Naturally, the day after the DVDs were dispatched, the original set arrived. Then a week later, the second set arrived here. I logged on to Amazon, resolved to do the right thing and return the DVD set. If they were good enough to send me an extra set, I’ll would return the package. Turns out, on the page to print a return slip, there was no adequate category for “A replacement package for an item which arrived late”. So I emailed Amazon to ask what to do, and how I would be reimbursed for shipping. Here’s the response ( trimmed down )

As the cost of returning the package is in this case prohibitively
expensive, we ask that you keep the replacement with our
compliments. Perhaps you would like to donate it to a charity in
your area if you feel it would be appropriate to do so.

That represents some excellent customer service. I makes me completely confident that anything I order from Amazon will arrive, and that if it doesn’t, they’ll replace it, no questions asked. No doubt people take advantage of this, but hopefully Amazon will continue to assume the best of its customers.

Great interview with the founder of the Swedish Pirate Party.

What was remarkable was that this was the point where the enemy — forces that want to lock down culture and knowledge at the cost of total surveillance — realised they were under a serious attack, and mounted every piece of defense they could muster. For the first time, we saw everything they could bring to the battle.

And it was… nothing. Not even a fizzle. All they can say is “thief, we have our rights, we want our rights, nothing must change, we want more money, thief, thief, thief”. And shove some poor artists in front of them to deliver the message. Whereas we are talking about scarcity vs. abundance, monopolies, the nature of property, 500-year historical perspectives on culture and knowledge, incentive structures, economic theory, disruptive technologies, etc. The difference in intellectual levels between the sides is astounding.

Apparently, family values are being threatened!

THE State Government is indulging in social engineering in giving lesbians and single women access to fertility treatment, giving lesbian partners legal recognition as parents and allowing surrogate mothers, the leader of a Jewish, Christian and Muslim committee said yesterday.

Heaven’s above! Whatever shall we do! Who’s responsible for this degradation of the moral fabric of our time?

Rabbi Shimon Cowen said planned changes announced by Attorney-General Rob Hulls before Christmas showed that secularists had hijacked fundamental values and were changing accepted morals.

Bloody secularists. Next thing they’ll be telling us that owning slaves is “wrong” and that “gays” should be allowed to walk the street with you and me.

This is a text book example of religion retarding the advancement of society. A bunch of old men who’ve climbed the “holier than thou” ladder of internal church politics presume to tell us that we’re not living by the standards of their sacred books.

Well, not that new. Got it just before Christmas.

I picked it up on Wednesday after work ( The Wednesday before Christmas ), then returned it on Thursday morning. The camera didn’t detect the lens was attached. I took it into Michael’s on Elizabeth street where I’d bought it and was being helped by a competent sales assistant when his manager swanned over and said

“Ohhh, I don’t think a lens like that will work on that cheapo camera.”

Ha! Since I wanted what ever was busted replaced immediately, I took a positive approach.

“Oh I’m sure it does — I’ve read reviews on the internet”

He then proceeded to check with some other guys if the lens would work with the camera, to which they all said “Yes — of course.”. Turns out it was a faulty camera, which they replaced immediately.

Anyways, aside from that unpleasantness, I’m enjoying having an SLR. I upgraded my flickr account to a pro account, but it’s also spurred me to continue writing photoKing.

…is naturally opened by customs.

From the Daily Mail :

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology.

Hahaha. I was sure that was a joke when I first read it.