stephen-turner.net

Whay are the spam merchants of the world suddenly obsessed with rolexes?

In the beginning, spam was all about porn, then it became about cheap and/or illegal medication, but now a very high proportion of what I get (thankfully a lot less than what I used to since I changed ISPs) is all about watches. Mostly rolexes, and mostly I suspect, fake, if not fictional.

Just another one of those weird Net things I guess. Another cycle.

Possibly the most cretinous people on earth are on Usenet.

At my job, I spend all day putting together TV guides from station info (which probably sounds more interesting than it is, I assure you), and one of the things I’ve taken to doing is reading the aus.tv newsgroup at least a few times a day. Reading is probably too broad a term for what I do when I’m there though.

It’s just terrible. Really sick pathetic stuff for the most part. Either they’re mostly a bunch of insane sexist, racist, mysogynist, psychotic anti-social freaks, or they’re classic “trolls” who are almost as screwed up because they get they’re kicks from just pretending to be like that.

I might post a few of them later, but I don’t think it’s wise to spread the idiocy further.

Funny thing is, I was a big user of newsgroups at one point – from about 1995-1997 it was my main thing online. I don’t know if they’re degenerated with the gradual diversification of the online world, or if their total lack of moderation or control has made them attractive to pathetic arseholes. Either way, it’s a far cry from what usenet used to be, and a total waste of time to any sentient human being.

But I do look at work – either to pass the time, or to find out what the cretins think of us

A thought:

The most terifying, stupid, dullard, backward dangerous scumbags on earth are American.

And the most intelligent, forward thinking, decent and noble people on earth are American as well.

The USA in a nutshell.

Finally watched my first full episode of Joss Whedon’s late lamented (sort of) series, Firefly. It started airing in Australia last week, but I taped that one and still haven’t got around to watching it. And a good thing too, because I can see that tonight’s was really the pilot.

I’d heard how the show got screwed by Fox TV in the US, and now I’m starting to see how. We’re getting it here in the same order they played it there – an inane and illogical one. Last week’s episode (which I saw moments of) had all the characters established already, but then this week’s introduced them all, including the arrival of several of the characters on the ship for the first time. It’s actually done pretty well in the true pilot, but this poor ordering must have confused the hell out of the wider audience – and damaged its overall chance of success.

Needless to say, if I had a little more money, I would have bought the series on DVD already – and now I’m seeing what it’s like, I’m thinking even more strongly of just buying it anyway, money be damned.

As for the show itself? Looking damn interesting – definitely the most self conscious “space western” ever, because it literally is a western in space, right down the to clothing, musical choices and overall asthetics. It’s got a touch of the “anti-Star Trek” again, because the heroes are people who lost a galactic war against an all-ecompassing alliance. I’ve seen it compared to the post US civil war period, but I can’t see these heroes being compared to the southerners. Though I don’t know much about the history there yet – what the war was about, who started it and so on.

Liking the characters very much – pure Joss. Nathan Fillion’s Reynolds is laid back but tought, Jewel Staite is gorgeous in a very Willowesque/Alyson Hannigan kind of way, and Adam Baldwin’s Jayne is quite deliberately nuts. It’s a big ensemble, and one that I hope gets a good airing in the limited space they’ve got.

That’s it, I really should just buy the DVDs…

I’ve just signed up for www.last.fm today. Looks very promising. First time that I’ve really looked seriously at a good online radio service – never bothered before on dialup. This one is looking good. More when I’ve explored it a bit more.

I really love what Neil Gaiman wrote today. It’s about his response to the US election, which of course must have hit him harder because he has to live there. The most important bit:

“As a solution to various problems you may encounter upon the way, let me suggest this: Make Good Art.

It’s very simple. But it seems to work. Life fallen apart? Make good art. True love ran off with the milkman? Make good art. Bank foreclosing? Make good art.”

As someone who knows this is the truth, and knows equally well that he hasn’t been doing enough of it, these are truly words to live by.

Can anyone in the western world believe that Bush actually won? With a bigger margin this time? With more “legitimacy”, if that will ever be possible? Has the world gone mad?

Well, apart from this sneaking certainty that half of America has just confirmed its utter stupidity for the world to see, and they don’t care in the slightest, it’s hard to know what the next four years will bring. Whatever American gets (at least that half, anyway), they deserve, but what about the rest of us? How many wars now? How much bullshit will we have to take?

The ultimate irony for the US of course is the fact that the people most likely to be under threat from terrorists (the north east and west coast), were the least likely to vote for Bush, while the dumb fucking hicks under next to no threat from anything except themselves were the most likely to vote for him. Maybe fear is sometimes easier to use on people when it isn’t really there – while the people who have some of the real threat are more content to just get on with their lives – and are more likely to see through all the bullshit that has been damaging them before now.

Oh well. Stick together smart people. And watch out for the fundamentalists, because they dominate both sides.

And there was some horse race in Australia today… that Melbourne Cup thing.

But hey, at least we get half the afternoon off work

In other news, I actually managed to pick the winner… Makybe Diva. Apparently I know a thing or two… though it was the favourite…

The US election is tomorrow (our time). It’s a curious thing really – to be so interested in the election of a foreign country’s leader. But it’s also a unique situation, because in a lot of ways, the winner of the US poll will in many ways affect Australia more than the winner of our election a few weeks back. If sanity prevails and Kerry wins (hey, he may not be the best candidate possible, but he’s definitely the best candidate they have to choose from), then Australia will really have to change its tune internationally (you really think Howard will tell President Kerry where to go, and keep doing as he pleases now?) And while most of the problems that exist will still be here, the chance to almost immediately change how they’re tackled will be here.

As for the chances of Kerry winning, they actually seem to be improving. I read this morning that even oil traders are now predicting a Kerry victory, saying that prices will be lower due to a different approach to middle-eastern policy and a greater investment in alternative energy sources. Definitely not the sort of support Democrats were expecting I suppose, but still worth pointing out.

Will there be fraud and abuse at the polls? Probably. And while no one’s naïve enough to think that both sides won’t try things, we all know that it’s primarily a Republican tactic. Traditionally, the more people who vote, the more chance Democrats will win, the less that vote the more chance that Republicans will win. So they have the motivation right there.

As for the rest of the world, I guess we just sit back and wait and see…