G’DAY WORLD #304 – Social Activism update

As you know, I’m trying to figure out how I can make the world a better place. Today I had a chat with Richard Giles about some of the recent attempts I’ve made to volunteer for organisations like LifeLine and Big Brother Big Sister, my vision of a 21st century geek version of Rotary, and the following sites:

Change.org

Mobile Phones and Social Activism

Witness.org

Father Bob Maguire’s podcast

The track for today is:

Heresy and the Hotel ChoirMaritime
“For Science Fiction” (mp3)
from “Heresy and the Hotel Choir”
(Flameshovel Records)

More On This Album

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

TPN now has a HQ in Second Life! Add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends (that’s me). I’d be happy to show you around and help you find your SL legs.

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Some Christians Make Me Laugh

I know I should restrain myself, but I really can’t.

Back in January I wrote a post about how many people the Judeo-Christian god “Yahweh” killed according to their “Old Testament” or “Tanakh”.

So far it’s had 69 comments. Some of them are hilarious but none more than the most recent one left by teenage “Heather S”.

She has some ripper statements like:

In the bible, God pretty much said do what he says and you shall live a great life.
So if those retards back then didnt listen. When they had prophets plain as day telling them what God is telling them to do. And from what your saying. “God Murdered Them.”
well, hello. If he brought you into this world, he sure as hell can take you out.

and

i didnt read all of the reply thingys…
who said they believed in evolution????
OMG! Are you serious?
mmk, so you think you came from a fucking monkey?
so someone in your family tree screwed an ape? honestly.

and my favourite:

Cameron you seem like a funny sad, sick, slightly mental little person.

At least she got that part correct.

God bless you Heather S. You made my afternoon.

Birthday presents arriving already!

There aren’t many better ways to arrive home than to find multiple Amazon boxes sitting on your front doorstep! Thanks to Nick Hodge, Caitlin Kelly (Aussies) and Wilson Roberto Afonso (Brazil!) for your most generous contribution to my birthday heist! The pile of books beside my bed just rose by six! This is in addition to Andy Brown from the UK who sent me some Napoleon DVD’s a few weeks ago. You guys have significantly improved my week which, with all the server issues I’ve been fighting through, has been incredibly shitty. Thank you for putting a big smile back on my increasingly dour face and stopping me from drinking rat poison for another day at least.

The books I got are:

    Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method
    Blink
    The Case For Mars
    Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order
    Legacy Of Ashes: The History of the CIA
    Accelerando (a sci-fi classic by Charles Stross)

Definitely a bunch of great things to challenge my thinking in a bunch of different ways which will no doubt lead to more interviews! Thanks again folks. You rock.

My birthday (Oct 10) is still a couple of weeks away though, so there is plenty of time for the rest of your to spread the love by buying me shit from my Amazon wishlist and stop me from killing either myself or my IT support people.

Creationists Sue Critics To Shut Them Up

I heard about this on a recent episode of the Skeptics Guide To The Universe Podcast. Some guys calling themselves the Extant Dodos have been taking videos posted to the web by the Creation Science Evangelism organisation which “prove” creationist theories and then debunk them, putting the re-edited videos on YouTube. The CSE people don’t like criticism, so they have apparently threatened to sue the Dodos for infringement of copyright and have demanded YouTube take down the Dodos’ videos. The last recourse of people who can’t win an argument must be to sue your critics. The classic bit is that on their website, the CSE folks originally had this clause: “None of the materials produced by Creation Science Evangelism are copyrighted, so feel free to copy those and distribute them freely.”

Read more here.

G’DAY WORLD #289 – Nick Johnstone, Education 2.0

Today my guest is Nick Johnstone, science teacher and education innovator.

Nick and I go WAY WAY BACK. This photo is from our last day of high school in 1987.
Cam and Nick 1987

Anyway, these days Nick is Head of Science at St Lukes School in Bundaberg and he’s talking to me tonight about one of his favourite subjects: Information, Communication and Learning Technologies in Science Education. Nick is using Smartboards, mobile phones, wikis, podcasts and blogs in this classes and explains the educational benefits of using the latest technology in the classroom.

If you’re interested in learning more about the use of ICT in education, check out Nick’s site and TPN’s Education Transformation podcast.

Become part of the G’Day World conversation.

I’ve created a couple of groups inside Second Life. You can now add yourself to the following groups:

  • Friends Of G’Day World
  • MODM
  • The Podcast Network
  • If I knew how to link directly to those groups from here, I would. But I don’t. So for now you just need to search for them in-world. Or you can add “Cameron Switchblade” to your friends and check out the groups I belong to.

    If you’re a member of Facebook, you can ADD ME AS A FRIEND and then ADD YOURSELF TO THE G’DAY WORLD GROUP.

    You can show your love by buying me stuff from my Amazon wish list.

    Add me to your Twitter account.

    You might DIGG the show.

    Get the TPN version of Particls.

    Don’t forget to make use of my new comments line – +613 9016 9699.

    You can now buy transcripts of this podcast from Pods In Print.

    If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed and leave us a voice comment!

    The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me” by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.

    Vernor Vinge’s “Rainbows End” Wins ‘Best Novel’ at Hugo Awards!

    Via Simon Sharwood’s twitter, I just learned that Vernor Vinge’s “Rainbows End” has just won the coveted ‘Best Novel’ award at the Hugo Awards! A massive congratulations from all at TPN to Vernor. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of RAINBOWS END. It is a brilliant imagining of what the net will probably look like in 2025.

    Vinge was recently on G’Day World and I guess this is as good a time as any to give it another plug! Listen to my July 2007 interview with Vernor Vinge here.

    Rainbows End