Julian Assange at TED July 2010

by | Jul 21, 2010 | activism, geopolitics, media 2.0, Wikileaks

Australia’s most impressive media entrepreneur, Julian Assange, explains how Wikileaks works and provides some insight into recent events, in this recent interview with Wired’s Chris Anderson at TED.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

Assange is trying to use the internet to change the world. He is what Peter Ellyard would call a “Future Maker”. I’m constantly motived and inspired by Julian’s quietly bold approach to tackle world governments and corporations. He’s spot on in this interview when he says a good approach to figuring out what the most important news is, is to discover what corporations and governments are spending a lot of effort and money to keep secret.

Recently I’ve been reading ridiculous suggestions that Wikileaks is a “honey trap” for whistleblowers. The idea seems to be that Wikileaks gets potential whistleblowers to come forward, and then they are arrested, Manning’s recent arrest is taken as being a sign that something is rotten in Denmark. The only problem with this scenario is that stuff is being leaked. It would be seem a bit of a stretch to think the establishment are allowing their dirty laundry to get exposed in an effort to create a temptation for potential whistleblowers to come forwards. As Julian says at the beginning of the video, Wikileaks has released more leaks in the last couple of years than the rest of the world media COMBINED.

My Top 15 iPad Apps

by | Jul 14, 2010 | iPad

Getting an iPad?

Here’s my TOP 15 apps you should definitely check out.

Zinio: the iPad is great for reading magazines and although the Zinio app is (at present) a little clunky, it does the job.

Sketchbook: draw everything from simple diagrams and flowcharts to works of art.

Word Monkey: awesome game to work your brain.

Lifelike Clock: the app that wakes me up in the morning.

Analytics: check your site stats on the fly.

GoodReader: read PDFs with ease, great integration with Dropbox.

1Password: never forget your passwords again.

ABC (as in Australian Broadcasting Corporation): Watch TV, listen to the radio, read the news.

Reeder: Amazing RSS reader that integrates with Google Reader.

Dropbox: Get access to all of your files from your iPad.

Evernote: Take notes, retrieve notes, anywhere, anytime. I live in this app.

Twitterific: Very slick Twitter app.

Remote: Control your music collection from your iPad. Will be nicer when they come out with a true iPad version.

Stanza: Read the latest books and the classics. Unlike Apple’s iBooks app, you can actually buy books to read outside the USA. And they are usually a quarter of the price.

Osmos: AMAZING game, probably the most beautiful iPad app I’ve seen. Mesmerizing.

Noam Chomsky: US role in Haiti destruction

by | Jul 12, 2010 | geopolitics, Haiti

Brilliant analysis by Noam, as always. We’re lucky to have him.

In this video, he describes why the USA and France should be paying REPARATIONS to Haiti, not handing out AID.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVVRoWxFB1s&hl=en_US&fs=1]

Pilot Of My New Bible Podcast

by | Jul 5, 2010 | Christianity

How man people have read the entire bible, cover to cover? Well…. I have. A few times. And now I’m about to do it again. This time, however, I’m going to record it. That’s right – the entire bible. Old and new testaments.

Why? Because it’s a fascinating, confusing, humorous and scary piece of literature. And everyone, Christian or not, should know what it says. Ninety-nine percent of all of the Christians I’ve ever asked have told me that they HAVE NOT read it cover to cover, even the people who actually think it is the literal word of GOD. Pretty amazing.

So anyway – now all of you lazy people don’t have to read it, because I’m going to do it for you. And I’ll even explain it as I go.

The show will get its own website soon, this is just a preview.

UPDATE: This show now has its own site.