I was at this concert. I’ll never forget this opening number. It was TOTALLY INSANE. This video doesn’t begin to do it justice. Instead of the footage of the audience in the first 30 seconds it should have shown the stage. First thing you heard was the loud thunderous thumping. Then the top of the stage opened up and bright white lights blinded you. Then MJ marched up from inside the stage. Lights dimmed, smoke cleared, he screamed, everything exploded.

I still say it was the most amazing concert I’ve ever been to in my life. He was at his peak and - let’s face it - BAD was his last interesting album. After that he just melted down and become more freak than artist.

I was talking to Chrissy the other day, wondering who taught Michael how to dance - turns out it was a guy called Jeffrey Daniel. Check this video out:

Let’s remember though that the evidence seems to indicate that Michael was a very disturbed human being, a paedophile who only didn’t end up serving 20 years in jail because he could afford to buy his way out of trouble with $22 million of hush money.

And I don’t care that "he had a tough childhood". Yeah sure - being super rich and famous and talented must be a bitch. Guess what? Lots of people who end up committing criminal behaviour had messed up childhoods. And while we should definitely be understanding of that in our legal system, and recognize that emotional and psychological damage need to be treated responsibly, it’s not a ‘get out of jail free card’.

Unless, of course, you are someone who can spend $22 million on out-of-court settlements - like Michael Jackson - or priests in the Catholic Church.

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(via Geeky Gadgets)

My lovely girlfriend, Christine Dunaway (@fddlgrl on Twitter), is moving from Seattle, Washington to Brisbane in July! No, we didn’t meet on Twitter, we actually met on the island of Corsica last year while we were both there for the Napoleon conference. Chrissy  was there to perform at the gala dinner (she’s definitely NOT a Napoleon geek!).

Chrissy is a Suzuki violin teacher with 10 years teaching experience (she’s not as young as she looks!) and for the last year has been the Director of The Suzuki Academy at Seattle Music Center. As she’s moving to Brisbane, she will be setting up a new music school and will be looking for students to start immediately!

She will be looking for students from age 4 up to adults and from beginners to advanced in Brisbane who want violin lessons or viola lessons starting in July 2009.

Chrissy is a very popular teacher in Seattle (check out some of the testimonials from parents of students on her site) and I’m sure she’ll be just as sought after here.

So if you’ve got kids in Brisbane wanting violin or viola lessons - or even if you want to learn yourself - check out her new website for more information!

It seem that back in January, Letterman invited the legendary Bill Hicks‘ mother onto the show to formally apologize in public for cutting Bill’s Oct 1993 stand-up routine from the show. Apparently Letterman and his producer were concerned about Bill’s jokes about Jesus. As Bill Hicks’ fans know, he died 5 months later from pancreatic cancer.

Not only did Dave apologize back in January, he played the banned stand-up routine. It’s pretty moving.

 Here it is:

Here are the first two parts of the full interview.

Part One

Part Two

(all rights reserved maumeedb8)

Anyway…

Details here.

There are still limited tickets available and as a special offer to the Podcast Network listeners you can get a ticket for just $25 instead of $45. Simply on the registration page click TPN Member - and use keyword “planet”. After the event is Mobile Monday Brisbane where Keith Ahern from Australia’s leading iPhone developers MoGeneration will be showcasing how to get into the App store… so if you’re interested in the latest mobile tech stuff come along to that as well.

The somnolence of a Sunday in Ajaccio. A heavy drowsiness permeates your bones, muscles, brain, willing you to sleep, sleep.

Now, in the evening, a breeze blows in from the sea, and people come alive again, the ’second’ wind. The heat pushes you to stop in the afternoon, but relents at dusk and invites you back out to play. People rejoice in the reprieve like death-row pardonees.

The buildings are age worn, peeling paint in faint shades of dirty white, sad yellow, betrayed pink, dying pale green. All with shutters of canary-egg blue.

I’m sitting at “Le 1er Consul”, 2 Rue Bonaparte, drinking a Pietra, a Corsican beer. I can hear the fountains, cars honking, motorcycles, the drifting voices in French, tumbling over each other like waves on the shore. Pigeon’s wings flapping behind me, cooing.

The sky is completely cloudless and blue to match the window shutters.

I love listening to people speak French. They always sound like they are sulking about something. It sounds French if you pout and say any string of noises with the vowel sounds “oo” and “oh” and “on”. “Foo on coh soo”. And the “monsieur” at the end, the drawn out “ssss” always sounds like an insult. “Foo on coh soo too mo boo, mohsssssyoooor.”

The cheese I bought at the market today was hard and crumbly and oily and eating it felt like committing an act of child rape, something of the utmost carnality and sordidness. It was heavy and indolent and arrogant in its almost lack of flavour. It almost dared you to enjoy it. It was a 20-year life sentence in a closet-sized cell that tasted of urine and stale blood. It was a peasant’s cheese, a cheese to eat out of desperation when the cupboard was bare and your ribs were poking out and you had already eaten the scraps out of the garbage. It was the last straw cheese, the end of the world cheese, the back against the wall cornered rat cheese. A cheese you wouldn’t bring home to mother, a cheese that had spent its life inside a tomb, no light or air for 10,000 years, a cheese that contained all of the curses of all of the mummies, the mold behind the closet in the house that the old, old, impossibly old woman died in six months ago and they only found her when the neighbours noticed the smell cheese.

And I loved it. Tomorrow I’ll go back for more.

As usual, I’ll be pulling out the old guitar and playing some songs before and after the show. Plan to stick around for the after party, where I’ll also be talking about:

- Why I Believe Women Run The World
- I’ll talk a bit about the interview I did with Kalle Lasn this morning and why the Internet is bad for you
- My plan for the TPN 500
- Why Ashton Kutcher is a douche… or maybe the greatest genius of our time

Oh and this week I have a sponsor for my scotch!

Find out the details of how to listen and participate LIVE in the show here.

Footage of his first day in jail has been leaked to G’Day World:

Is there a market for such a book? Would you buy it?

Let me know here.

Calling yourself a religion should no longer be a get out of jail free card for criminal behaviour.

clipped from newsweek.washingtonpost.com Let’s start a movement within the Catholic Church to impeach Pope Benedict XVI and remove him from office. While we’re at it, let’s replace him with a woman. I am a Catholic and the idea that such a man is God’s spokesperson on earth is absurd to me.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/19/impeach-the-pope/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/18/climate-scientists-say-its-too-late-were-screwed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/18/climate-scientists-say-its-too-late-were-screwed/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:16:36 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/18/climate-scientists-say-its-too-late-were-screwed/ George Monbiot’s article today says that climate scientists around the world are mostly in agreement that it’s too late. We’ve squandered any opportunity we might have had in the last decade to mitigate climate change by curbing our CO2 emissions. And last night on G’Day World Live I was *still* debating with Nick Beaugeard about whether or not climate change was caused by humans. The recording of that show, which also features Ian Kath and Kate Edwards discussing polyamory, will be up shortly this morning.

clipped from www.commondreams.org Quietly in public, loudly in private, climate scientists everywhere are saying the same thing: it’s over. The years in which more than 2C of global warming could have been prevented have passed, the opportunities squandered by denial and delay. On current trajectories we’ll be lucky to get away with 4C. Mitigation (limiting greenhouse gas pollution) has failed; now we must adapt to what nature sends our way. If we can.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/18/climate-scientists-say-its-too-late-were-screwed/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/17/okay-this-has-gone-far-enough/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/17/okay-this-has-gone-far-enough/#comments Tue, 17 Mar 2009 02:04:05 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/17/okay-this-has-gone-far-enough/ The Australian Government is officially fascist. They have officially stepped way, WAY over the line. There is no way they can justify blacklisting the Wikileaks site on the basis of “protecting the children from pornographers”. This is straight-up abuse of power, as Asher Moses points out in his article on the SMH:

Last week, Reporters Without Borders, in its regular report on enemies of internet freedom, placed Australia on its “watch list” of countries imposing anti-democratic internet restrictions that could open the way for abuses of power and control of information.

I wonder if ACMA considers it illegal to post TinyURLs to banned sites?

I wonder if its illegal to stick up posters on walls with the urls of banned sites?

I wonder if its illegal to stand in the street and speak the name of a banned url out loud?

I wonder if it’s illegal to even think the url of a banned site?

Read more below:

clipped from www.smh.com.au The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks. Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/17/okay-this-has-gone-far-enough/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/16/ipcc-worst-case-scenarios-are-being-realised/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/16/ipcc-worst-case-scenarios-are-being-realised/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:39:11 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/16/ipcc-worst-case-scenarios-are-being-realised/ While Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme seems to be hated by everyone, the IPCC says things are getting worse than even their worst-case scenarios. We’re all doomed.

clipped from climatecongress.ku.dk Key Message 1: Climatic Trends Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/16/ipcc-worst-case-scenarios-are-being-realised/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/penn-jillette-on-the-legalization-of-marijuana/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/penn-jillette-on-the-legalization-of-marijuana/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:58:21 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/penn-jillette-on-the-legalization-of-marijuana/ Penn says drugs should be legal and he’s never touched them. I’ve barely touched them myself (a couple of attempts to smoke pot never really worked, I seem to be incapable of inhaling without choking) and I agree with him. As Penn says “If you aren’t free to put whatever substances you want into your own body, then you aren’t free.” The so-called “War On Drugs” costs taxpayers billions. Let’s use that money for education instead. If people commit REAL crimes while under the influence of drugs, then we should punish them for those in the same way we punish drink drivers but don’t have prohibition. It doesn’t work.

clipped from www.iheartchaos.com

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/penn-jillette-on-the-legalization-of-marijuana/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/why-newspapers-died/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/why-newspapers-died/#comments Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:14:16 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/why-newspapers-died/ The great Clay Shirky says (albeit much more eloquently) what I’ve been saying for five years - that newspapers are dying because of their economics. Read the entire article if you’re interested in the future of media, because this is the most intelligent analysis I’ve read in years. Clay points out that the newspaper industry knew it was coming, too. They just stuck their heads in the sand until it was too late. Twenty years from now, I believe business schools will teach about the end of the newspaper empires in the same way they used to teach about the end of the horse and buggy manufacturers.

clipped from www.shirky.com When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of its most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/15/why-newspapers-died/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/13/us-atheists-continue-to-suffer-discrimination/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/13/us-atheists-continue-to-suffer-discrimination/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:09:40 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/13/us-atheists-continue-to-suffer-discrimination/ The American Chronicle has this article on the discrimination faced by atheists in the United States. I don’t see it as being as much of an issue in Australia and yet I wonder - how many Australian politicians are public atheists?

clipped from www.americanchronicle.com If you live in the United States, you are almost certainly friends with at least one atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever, skeptic, or unaffiliated humanist, whether you know it or not. And your friend almost certainly endures prejudice and unequal treatment, whether you know it or not. And your friend is roughly as decent, good, loyal, honest, courageous, and generous as your other friends, and you know it.

]]> http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/13/us-atheists-continue-to-suffer-discrimination/feed/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/12/sesame-street-r-is-for-redundancies/ http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/12/sesame-street-r-is-for-redundancies/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:47:51 +0000 Cameron Reilly http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2009/03/12/sesame-street-r-is-for-redundancies/ The big shock for me in this story is that Sesame Street only makes $145m a year? How is that possible? With all of that brand merchandising? I’m shocked. I’m sure the Wiggles make more than that. And they SUCK. (link via @thetowncrier)

Sesame Workshop, the US non-profit organisation that produces Sesame Street, is cutting 20% of its workforce because of the recession.

Read more on The Age.

Anaxagoras is the first recorded atheist; has been described as the first scientist; and was the first philosopher to take up at his abode at Athens. He was the father of the idea of atoms and the teacher of Pericles. Around 450BCE he wrote his treatise “On Nature” which declared (among other things but we don’t know much of it, as it’s been lost to history) that the sun was a red-hot stone (an idea borrowed from the ideas of Anaximenes) and that the moon was made of earth and derives it’s light from the sun. He was accused of being an atheist, sentenced to death, but seems to have escaped (probably with the help of Pericles) and been exiled from Athens.

As we atheists need something to celebrate on December 25th, I’m proposing that we remember the bravery, insight and diligence of the first recorded atheist in history by celebrating ANAXAGORAS DAY.

This year on December 25th I will be sending out Anaxagoras cards to friends and family, decorating my home with pictures remembering the story of Anaxagoras and composing hymns to the life of Anaxagoras. I hope you will join me.

Craig Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.”

Who needs a podcast? Anyone in:

- Marketing
- PR
- HR
- Training
- Internal Comms

Especially in this time of financial tightening, podcasting is a tool more companies should be using. It’s a very cost-effective way to reach the key members of your audience on a weekly basis. And, of course, if you’re going to produce social media, you should work with someone who has actually some experience producing media for large audiences and isn’t just all talk.

There are a few different kinds of podcasts my clients tend to be using at the moment:

1. The External “Transparency” podcast - this kind of podcast aims to make a client more accessible to their clients. It can be either video or audio and involves me doing interviews with people inside the company about what they (and their division) actually do. This typically suits a very large org that wants to soften or humanise it’s image. The strategy is that their clients/customers will subscribe to the podcast to get a better understanding of what each of the divisions is working on and how best to engage with them.

2. The External “Value-Add” podcast - this kind of podcast usually has content completely unrelated to the actual services and products of the org, but which is designed to be valuable to the target audience. Typically it might involve interviews with world leaders in the same field. Each podcast is wrapped with an audio or video header and footer, “This podcast is brought to you by….”, to keep the client’s message and brand in front of their audience every week.

3. The Internal Management podcast - this podcast involves video or audio interviews with members of the management team (CEO, CFO, COO, HR Director, etc) on a regular basis to go out to the employees via their intranet. It allows the senior leadership of an org to efficaciously communicate business updates with their teams around the country and world on a weekly basis and in a personable manner. It might also involved interviews with employees throughout the business. Who are they? What do they do? What is their focus? This is a great tool for encouraging cross-collaboration in large orgs.

4. The External Product/Service podcast - this podcast has to be handled cleverly. Most people aren’t going to subscribe to a podcast that’s just a marketing vehicle UNLESS it’s actually cool and informative or very funny. Often the best way to handle this kind of podcast is to get your customers involved. Get THEM talking about or demonstrating your products and services. Make it about THEM, not about you.

Demographics: There’s a common misconception that podcast audiences are still only the young tech savvy folks. While this was probably true back in 2004/5, it certainly isn’t any longer. The success of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, combined with the marketing of podcasts by mainstream media like the ABC, has actually skewed the demographic to a 40+ audience (according to the surveys I run on TPN’s audience each year).

So, here’s how you can help - if you know of anyone who might be interested in using my services, make sure you point them in my direction. In addition, if you email me the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the people in your company that fulfill the above roles, I’ll contact them directly and give them the pitch (ideally using you as a point of introduction but, if you’re not comfortable with that, I’ll leave your name out of it).

Here are my contact details to make it easy:

Cameron Reilly
CEO, The Podcast Network
tel: +61 400455334
email: cameron@thepodcastnetwork.com

Thanks for your support!

I’ve used this as my expectation of people ever since I first saw the film 20 years ago. People will do what their character demands.

impossibible:

A description of statements in religious books which are impossible.

eg “Jesus rising from the dead is impossibible.”

Urban Dictionary: impossibible

Nothing more to say!

HOWEVER - I always find myself at the grocery store having forgotten to pick a recipe for the night and so I don’t have the ingredients list.

Now that I have a shiny new iPhone I came up with this hack this morning.

1. Scan a few recipes from the book into my Mac.
2. Drag each image into Evernote (I have a folder in there called ‘recipes’).
3. Install Evernote iPhone app.

Now, when I’m at the grocery store, I just pull out my iPhone, open up Evernote, and I have everything I need!

I should point out that I started off this morning trying to take photos of the recipes straight into the iPhone but the resolution on the camera isn’t good enough to capture text. However, this Clarifi case from Griffin seems to come with a built-in lens that gives your iPhone a boost in camera resolution. I might try to find one of those today. It would save me the scanning step.

meet’cha at ardeer station. - melbournegirl

… goes to TheReconnection.com. I saw this flyer at a local cafe and got such a laugh out of it, I had to share it.

I especially love the second paragraph:

“The Reconnection (TM) bring in “new” axiatonal lines that enable us to standardize unique vibratory levels and frequencies for healing and ultimately, for our evolution. These axiatonal lines are part of a parallel-dimensional circulatory system that draws the basic energy for the renewal functions of the human body.”

Wow. And I often wonder how much bullshit is in *my* marketing documents. That takes the cake.

When I arrived in Israel as a UN representative I knew there might be problems at the airport. And there were

Richard Falk: My expulsion from Israel | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk