by cameron | Mar 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
I love Twitter. Too much.
Late last night, I was driving home from having a beer with a couple of old school mates and realized I was checking Twitter on my iPhone WHILE I WAS DRIVING every few minutes.
I don’t like feeling that I’m addicted to things. I gave up drinking alcohol for 12 years (from age 18 to 30) because I felt like I had a problem with it. And with Twitter, I’ve been feeling lately like I NEED to check Twitter. Like I’m missing out on something if I don’t check it or tweet something every ten minutes. It’s an urge. A need. It’s physical. I’d love to see an fMRI scan of the hypothalamus when people are using Twitter. I’m sure some people have a greater addiction to activities that generate increased dopamine (one of the neurochemicals associated with pleasure and motivation) than others, and I know I’m one of them. I get easily addicted to short-term activities that give me a burst of quick pleasure and I want to train myself to develop better impulse control. And I’m starting with Twitter.
Over the last ten years I have fasted a number of times (ingested nothing but water) for a week to ten days when I’ve felt like my diet was out of control. Every time I’ve done it I have found that it re-calibrates my thinking about food for pleasure versus food for nutrition. I’m hoping a Twitterfast will accomplish the same thing. By the way, when I used the term ‘twitterfast’ last night I thought I was coining it but apparently it’s been around for quite a while. 🙂
IN the meantime… if you haven’t watched Bill Gates’ talk from the recent TED conference, watch it now. I was stunned to learn that more investment goes into finding a cure for baldness than a cure for malaria.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
by cameron | Mar 20, 2009 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Tim Burrowes, formerly the editor of B&T Magazine and now the guy behind the excellent mumbrella blog about media and marketing, invited me to write a guest post there today. Excerpt and link below.
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Guest post: If you want an independent media start supporting it
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As Mumbrella reported earlier this week, The Podcast Network, headed by Cameron Reilly, is facing a funding crisis. Here Reilly – who presents G’Day World, Australia’s first podcast – argues  for the importance of an independent media in a rapidly changing landscape.
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 For years I have debated Australian journalists and newspaper editors trying to explain that the writing was on the wall – not because of a technology shift but because of an economic shift enabled by technology. In every debate, I was told “we’re going to be here forever”.
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by cameron | Mar 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
I’ve had a couple of people suggest I should compile a book of transcripts of the top 50 or so interviews I’ve done on G’Day World over the years, including people like Noam Chomsky, Ray Kurzweil, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hunter Lovins, etc.
Is there a market for such a book? Would you buy it?
Let me know here.
by cameron | Mar 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
An interesting article in the Washington Post today, written by a Catholic, which calls for the impeachment of Pope Benedict. I’d like to see this go one step further – the Catholics, and all other religious sects, should be forced to abide by the same laws as any other business. That means abolishing any practice which is discriminatory on the grounds of gender or sexual preference. That means mens rea charges are brought against them for inciting their “flock” to commit crimes (which is exactly what the Pope is doing when he instructs men in Africa not to use condoms) or for helping child molesters in your ranks avoid charges being brought against them for their crimes, thereby allowing them to continue committing them.
Calling yourself a religion should no longer be a get out of jail free card for criminal behaviour.
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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.
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I am a Catholic and the idea that such a man is God’s spokesperson on earth is absurd to me.
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by cameron | Mar 18, 2009 | climate change, Uncategorized
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.
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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.
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by cameron | Mar 17, 2009 | Uncategorized, Wikileaks
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:
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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.
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Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked
document containing Denmark’s list of banned websites.
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