RePhotoshopping: someone's cool 500 image

Continuing the naughty party boy story, this image came through the email this morning - some nice work indeed. I had one small issue with it though - the original version had the guy with a Crown Lager tucked into his waistband when I felt that a Vodka Cruiser might be more appropriate.

So voila. Thanks to whoever did the original.

Being disturbed: by Derren Brown's Waking Dead

Derren Brown is an English hypnotist/magician/showman who has made a number of tv specials in the last few years that revolve around "magic" and trickery, with a heavy emphasis on messing with people's minds with suggestion and misdirection.

(Whether it's the audience or the people involved in the shows themselves that are messed with remains to be seen - although the showman aspect suggests that it's the former)

He achieved notoriety with a show he did in 2003 called Derren Brown plays Russian Roulette live, which was touted before broadcast as being the real deal but later revealed to be set up.

This video comes from a show that he did in 2005 and involves an apparent hypnotism exercise on a random man in a pub playing a zombie shoot-em-up games machine.



Debate rages as to how genuine this is - my personal feeling is that it's all a set up (as otherwise there are some massively unethical and possibly immoral activities going on here).

Some of the issues that raise immediate questions for me are:

• how could a games cabinet induce this kind of state?


• why would his friends act so blase?


• what if something went wrong - guy flips out - massive liability issues


• what about long term psych damage?


• how does Derren put the guy back to sleep in the game building?

There have certainly been a number of scientific studies done over the years that show that people can easily be convinced to do things that they wouldn't normally do by the presence of authority figures - the Milgram experiment in the 1960s in which volunteers were convinced to administer potentially deadly electric shocks on the orders of man in a lab coat - and so it's not out of the question that the "friends" may have been convinced on this basis.

If you accept the premise however that this was a completely unscripted event, there would have been no imperative whatsoever for the "friends" to have any concern other than for the wellbeing of their mate.

It's an interesting piece of video for discussing what's ethical and what's not in science/entertainment - but overall, just a little more disturbing that I like.

(I think the whole hidden-camera/reality/documentary feel of the thing added a lot to this and it would be interesting to go over the script for the voiceover and see what kinds of neuro-linguistic programming techniques might have been used on the viewer to create certain expectations.)

This video demonstrates the use of neuro-linguistic programming - interesting that it's an actor.

Photoshopping: the PM's sideburns

In the absence of real news, the Fairfax press have decided that a minor addition to our new Prime Minister's facial hair is worthy of a report.

As something of a sideys afficionado myself (and the occasional mo-grower), it seemed to me that perhaps he should be encouraged to go the whole hog.

After all, how cool would this be?



In other news, the naughty party boy now can't be named by the mainstream media as he's been charged with creating a public nuisance and the rather vindictive seeming charge of producing child pornography.

Not knowing the details of the case I obviously can't say for certain what this is all about but at a guess the police got very very snaky about the fact that he's been lapping up the media attention in the last few days and been generally unrepentant about the whole matter, making them look/feel a little silly/powerless. This kind of charge seems like the kind of thing that might come up if he was filming/photographing himself or any of his peers at the party getting saucy , presumably on his phone which I'm guessing would have been checked thoroughly when he went in to chat to the local law enforcement types yesterday.

I'd be surprised if the charge was allowed to make it all the way to court - it seems like something designed to give the kid a short sharp shock and a major scare, after all, having that kind of thing on your record could seriously screw up the rest of your life and even he would have to be aware enough to see that. It also seems like a calculated spin move to try to knock some of the boy's larrikin appeal off him. (Are we likely to see a Free [naughty party boy] campaign now?)

Of course I don't know the story but on first glance, it looks like a rather large and rather obvious overstepping of the mark from here.

Oooohing: the Macbook Air

I'm not really a laptop type person - the video and game building stuff that I like to do generally needs a little more grunt - but watching the guided tour video of the new Macbook Air, the teeny tiny Apple laptop which is 19mm at its thickest and 4mm at its thinnest, I must admit that I was struggling to find counter-arguments to the "I want" that was welling up within.

The small hard drive and the single USB port (not to mention the between $2400 and $4300 price tag) did the trick in the end - but still, that's one sexy machine.

Enjoying: the naughty party kids story

The story of a Narre Warren South teenager's party turned feral has been all over the news in recent days (presumably in the absence of anything more significant happening in this country) and I have to say, that I'm really enjoying the whole hullabaloo that has been kicked up.

It's your typical parents-away-invitation-posted-on-myspace-party-gone-wrong - with hundreds of loud drunken yoof turning up to a party and then turning on the police that are sent to disperse them when a neighbour complains. In this instance, police say that 500 drunken youth were in the street outside the house and threw bottles at the police car when they turned up.

The police in turn called in the dog squad and a helicopter to chase them away. (Not sure how the helicopter works in this instance).

Now the MSM (mainstream media) is all a flutter about the police commissioners statement that she thinks the boy who organised the party should have to pay the $20000 it cost to bring in the extra police (and at the price, presumably the cast of CSI).

The boy meanwhile - who seems every bit the young blonde tool loving his moment in the sun that a 16 y.o should - has been splashed all over the news for the last few days and - as is the way with the young folks, well schooled in the fine art of not-my-responsibility by the former Howard govt, doesn't see what the fuss is about.

He's also managed to come out with some pearler comments, which is why I think - meh, good on him.

When asked by the Nine Network what advice he had for other teenagers considering throwing a party while mum and dad are away, he said: "Get me to do it for you.

"Best party ever, that's what everyone's saying.''

But they (his parents) haven't had a chance to talk to their sociable son, who was still in his party clothes today - unzipped jacket, loud cap and big sun glasses.

"I haven't really talked to them because every time they try to call, I don't answer,'' Corey told Nine.

"They'll probably try to kill me.''

Corey told Nine he knew he had invited a lot of people but could not remember how the party started.

"I was just off my head,'' he said.

He refused to take responsibility for the damage.

"It was my party, but it could have been any random person walking down the street,'' he said.

I've also really enjoyed the footage taken by the tv networks trying to show the aftermath of the party - I saw the same shot of two half empty Vodka Cruiser bottles sitting in a garden bed replayed at least 3 times in one story, there was a tiny bit of broken glass on the road and that was the best they could do. I've seen worse in my backyard. Watch the ABC video here.



Actually, now that I think about it, you have 500 teenagers at a party with stuff being thrown at a cop car - are you really telling me there isn't a scrap of mobile phone video of this out there that someone hasn't wanted to sell? Now that's odd.

I also read somewhere online that the reason the party numbers swelled so much was that another large party was shut down shortly before in a neighbouring suburb. No mention of this in the msm.

All this said, I wouldn't be overly happy if this was going on outside my house but I have to give them points for being so delightfully obnoxiously young about it all.

Enjoying: Cat armour on the Internetz

The thing I like most about the web is that you are constantly finding things that you never would have thought of.

Like this cat (and mouse) armour by Canadian artist Jeff De Boer.



Check out the whole collection on his site here.