Hunter was mucking about with the camera this arvo and took some photos of the new head. Thanks to Christophe and Michael who have contributed post-shave to the donation site. It’s now up to $460!
The new head is growing on me (no pun intended). Belinda hates it and says I look like a thug. The kids love it though and can’t stop running their hands over it. I’ve taken to purring like a kitty every time they do it.
As some of you may know, I’m a transhumanist. So I always enjoy hearing stories in the mainstream media discussing transhumanist aspirations. Recently, the ABC’s “All In The Mind” show covered transhumanism with a lecture from Leda Cosmides, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara. Worth a listen. Link here.
More info on Transhumanism here.
Ryan Kennedy is a listener to G’Day World and he just wrote me the best frakkin email I’ve received in a while about how much he loves the show. I’m printing it out and sticking it to my wall. After the week I’ve had, that was just what I needed. Some ego stroking. Thanks Ryan. You da man.
Robert M. Price is professor of theology and scriptural studies at Coleman Theological Seminary and professor of Biblical Criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute. He was also featured in THE GOD WHO WASN’T THERE. DJ Grothe had Robert on the Point of Inquiry podcast last week and he totally demolishes the historical argument for the Jesus hypothesis. You have to listen to this interview. It’s terrific. I wish I’d heard this before I had John Dickson on the show. Price is incredibly articulate on the subject. I’d love to have him on my show but there is no way I could do a better job than DJ did with this. I’d love to see how Christians respond to these arguments. Perhaps I should try to get Dickson and Price on the show together for a discussion?
By the way, DJ and his producer Thomas Donnelly are coming on G’DAY WORLD this week for a chat. I’m looking forward to that.
The last good boss I had at Microsoft, Christophe DuMonet, left there just before I did (causing me all sorts of political problems but, in retrospect, I’m glad he did) and spent a few years as General Manager of a software division of Sydney-based software company Unique Software. He’s now taken a new position as Managing Director of the Australian office of French software company Esker, “the world’s leading document process automation solutions provider”. Hopefully this means he now has the budget to do engage a good podcast consultant. 🙂
I’m trying to think of what I learned from my time working for CD. He’s certainly a snappy dresser. And he’s this mad triathlete. Neither of those rubbed off on me. He tried to convince me I should play the political game at Microsoft, but I never really could get my ego out of the way. I’d rather say what I think and get condemned for it than pander to morons. It’s a low self-esteem issue I guess. People with healthier self-esteems are prepared to play the game to get what they want. I struggle.
We certainly had some good times though. I remember when we discovered we had some leftover marketing budget which needed to be spent before the end of the financial year and I came up with the idea of getting our top CIO clients and taking them out to the Flower Drum, one of the world’s best Chinese restaurants, for a monthly confab. That was a big hit. I figured we’d get more value out of letting our top customers eat and drink well and chat to each other about the Microsoft-related projects they were doing than trying to SELL them. They sold each other. Halfway into the third bottle of merlot, they would be inviting each other over to their offices to check out the cool stuff they were building using our tools.
Then there was the time we took one of our best customers, let’s call him Tony, and we hired a stretch limo and spent the day driving around Melbourne’s wine district, visiting wineries, eating, drinking, and sharing war stories. Great bonding stuff. How else do you get 8 hours with a CIO? Tony ended up one of our most loyal and valuable clients and a good friend.
But they were all my ideas. What did Christophe do? He backed me up. He gave me support to get the job done. Isn’t that the most important role of a good manager? Creating an environment where their people can do what they need to do without the rest of the company getting in their way?
His final act as my manager was to fight to get approval for me to spend a couple of weeks in New York at Cornell University’s supercomputing lab. At the time I had this vision for Microsoft in Australia to work with Universities to build out massively-parallel supercomputers using Windows Server 64-bit running on blades. We had training budget to spend and I said I wanted to go to Cornell to find out how they were doing it. Our boss didn’t want it to happen (mainly because he hated my guts) but CD made it happen. And although I left Microsoft not long afterwards and never had the chance to realize the vision, the trip to Cornell was a great experience and I’m sure I will use what I learned there at some stage in the future. And it wouldn’t have happened without Christophe’s support.
So for that Christophe – thanks mate. And congrats on the new job.
On episode 214 I have Rich and Gra from Scouta on the line. As most of you will know, Rich and Gra used to be podcasters on TPN before they selfishly and wantonly deserted me to run their own start-up. Do I hold a grudge? Do I ever. I’m like Tony Montana. Don’t cross me. I get my revenge today by singing Rainbow Connection to them. That’ll teach them.
Anyway, for those of you who haven’t already checked out Scouta, it’s a pretty cool idea. It’s a website where you can tell it what online videos and audio shows (like, for example, this podcast) you like a lot and it will recommend new things for you to watch and listen to.
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.
This is the first sign.
Jodie asked me to post up the spec of my new PC (which hasn’t arrived yet).
It’s basically a Lenovo A55 with the Core 2 Duo E6300 1.8 GHz processor, 1 GB DDR2 RAM (not sure this is going to be enough but I’ll buy another stick later if it needs it). Comes with a 250GB drive and I’ve got another TB of external drives that I’ll slam into it from the old machine. Here’s a link to the machine on Lenovo’s site.
It comes pre-loaded with Vista which I’m nervous about for a variety of reasons:
My key hope for the machine is that it will be QUIET. For the last few years I’ve had to turn my desktop off when I record and work on the laptop because the desktop sounded like a Boeing. The idea is that this one will be quieter because of the dual core processor and it’s got multiple smaller fans in it rather than a couple of the huge ones. Fingers crossed this does the trick.
I was originally going to get the smaller Lenovo desktop unit but it doesn’t have many expansion slots and when you’re doing a lot of audio and video editing, you never know what cards you might need. The integrated audio and video on the mobo usually aren’t enough for high-end processing.
By the way, my ‘dealer’ is my next-door neighbour David Jackson who has a company called Bespoke Solutions (soon to be re-branded Hexworks). If anyone in Melbourne is looking for a boutique IT solutions company, I can highly recommend David’s services. He’s a Christian but I can overlook that.
Title: EPISODE3 – G’day World Bitch
Description: This is the chance for listeners of the G’Day World podcast (Australia’s #1 podcast, www.gdayworld.com) to ring in and have a bitch. About the host (Cameron Reilly, CEO of The Podcast Network and all-round loudmouth), the show, or just things in general. Show is scheduled for 6am US EDT which is 9pm Aust DST.
Start Time: 03/18/07 06:00 AM EDT
Duration (minutes): 60
Click on the below link for details. Don’t forget – you can call in via phone (it’s a US number), SkypeOut or a SIP-compatible VOIP client, like Gizmo.
<img src="http://www.talkshoe.com/resources/talkshoe/images/tsBadge.gif"
I caught up again with Dr Peter Ellyard today for another enlightening and invigorating chat about where the world is heading. Every time Peter and I catch up it’s like sticking my fingers in a power socket. I come out of the time with him feeling inspired.
Today we talk about:
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.