by cameron | Dec 15, 2006 | Podcast
Today my guest is Hanan Lifshitz, founder and CEO of Palore, joining me from Israel.
Palore is a browser plug-in that pulls together reviews of businesses (restaurants, plumbers, etc) from across the web and let’s you view them directly from the website of the business. I think services like this will be key to us using the web to make better decisions about which businesses we give our hard-earned dollars to.
Hanan gives us a bit of background on the business, the vision for the future and explains his ideas about “Contextual RSS”.
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The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Dec 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
Richard Giles tells me his start-up, Scouta, is looking for a limited number of beta users. Go sign up at Scouta.com. Looks pretty cool. I think he’s onto something big.
by cameron | Dec 14, 2006 | Uncategorized
Another from my list of great albums you probably haven’t heard is “Dead Inside” by The Golden Palominos. I remember buying this cd when it came out in 96 because of one thing – the cover.
I’d never heard of the Palominos but this cover grabbed me. I was in JB Hi-Fi, looking for something different, looking to expand my musical horizons. And hell, did I.
For this, their last true album, Anton Fier (the main guy behind the GP) pulled in New York poet Nicole Blackman to write and perform the spoken-word lyrics about murder, rape, torture, and a city that kills its young against an atmospheric soundspace.
Click on the cover art above to sample some of the tracks.
by cameron | Dec 14, 2006 | Melbourne, Melbourne's Leaders, Podcast
This is the second show in my series of interviews with Melbourne’s top business and government leaders that I’m calling “Melbourne’s Top Dogs“. On this show, I’m very fortunate to interview Simon McKeon, Executive Chairman of the Melbourne office of Macquarie Bank, aka “The Millionaire Factory”, Australia’s premier investment bank.
Simon is an inspiring bloke. Not only has he risen from humble beginnings at Dandenong East Primary School through to the top of Australia’s corporate ranks, he’s also a genuine social activist. Five years ago, at the age of 45, Simon went part-time at Macquarie Bank to focus more of his energy on other pursuits – such as his role as a Director of World Vision, Chairman of corporate social responsibility organisation Melbourne Cares, chairing the Australian Federal Government’s takeover panel and volunteering as a counselor to heroin addicts at a St Kilda clinic. Oh and he is also a world champion speed sailor.
During the interview we talked about his background, his motivations, how he handles criticism, and how important empathy is in his dealings with people.
If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you don’t miss future episodes by subscribing to our feed.
The G’Day World Theme Song is “Save Me†by The Napoleon Blown Aparts.
by cameron | Dec 13, 2006 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
The bushfires in Melbourne have turned the sun red this morning. Here are a couple of shots I took from our street corner. I’ve told the boys this means we’ll have Kryptonian gravity today and by the time the sun turns yellow again we’ll all have superpowers. Hey, it’s no worse than telling them that Santa is real.
A sweet moment with Hunter last night – they were showing us some pictures they had made at school during the day and Hunter was trying to keep one back from me. When I asked why, it turned out it was a picture of the animals which were involved in the Nativity Play and Hunter said “I didn’t want to show you this one because I know you don’t believe in baby Jesus. I don’t either but they made me do it. I’ll give this one to Mummy instead.”
Awwww. He’s six.
by cameron | Dec 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
TVRoach is a new service just launched by Richard Eastes that quickly let’s you find freely available rips of lots of great TV shows which are up on a variety of online video services. TVRoach pulls them together into one spot where you can stream them down to your PC. It’s got a very simple interface and a fairly large collection of TV shows such as South Park, Family Guy, Scrubs, Kenny Vs Spenny, Entourage, etc.
Thanks to Angus Scown for the link!
DIGG IT.
by cameron | Dec 12, 2006 | Uncategorized
In 2002, some guy from Montreal, on vacation in NYC, bought an old record at a flea market in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. On Dec 8 2006 he sells it on Ebay for US$155,401.
What was the record? Well as the auction called it “ARGUABLY THE RAREST & MOST IMPORTANT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL AND POP-ART ARTIFACT IN THE WORLD”.
According to the IHT:
The recording turned out to be an in-studio acetate made during Velvet Underground’s first recording over four days in April 1966 at New York’s Scepter Studios. The record reportedly is only one of two in existence; the other is privately owned, with rumors circulating around the world about who the owner is.
So, I know many of you kids out there may not even know who the Velvets were or why this record is to important to rock history, so let The Cam do his duty and fill you in.
Let me steal from Wikipedia:
The Velvet Underground (sometimes abbreviated as The Velvets or VU) was an American rock band first active from 1965 to 1973. Its best-known alumni are Lou Reed and John Cale.
Although never commercially successful, The Velvet Underground remains one of the most influential bands of all time: a famous remark, often attributed to Brian Eno, is that while only a few thousand people bought a Velvet Underground record upon their initial release, almost every single one of them was inspired to start a band.
The Velvet Underground was one of the first rock music groups to experiment heavily with the form by incorporating avant-garde influences. The group’s often raw, sometimes difficult sound would influence many later punk, noise rock, and alternative music performers, and singer Lou Reed’s lyrics brought new levels of social realism and sleaze to rock. Critics Scott Isler and Ira Robbins argue that “The Velvet Underground marked a turning point in rock history. After the release of The Velvet Underground and Nico, knowing the power of which it was capable, the music could never be as innocent, as unselfconscious as before.
While many of you probably haven’t heard “The Velvet Underground and Nico”, you will definitely know the cover art by Andy Warhol.
Yes, on the original LP (that stands for “Long Playing” which meant the record played at 33 or 33-1/3 rpm…. see we used to have these things called “records” which were an analogue sound recording medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed modulated spiral groove starting near the periphery and ending near the center of the disc…. aww forget it…) the banana PEELED. It had “Peel Slowly and See” printed near a perforated tab. Those who did remove the banana skin found a pink, phallic, peeled banana beneath. Gay? Yes. Hello???? Andy Warhol was gay. There I said it. Sue me.
The album was recorded in one or two days in late 1966 and released in March 1967, the year of psychedelic music. In the same year the following albums came out:
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
The Doors – The Doors
Mellow Yellow – Donovan
Bee Gees 1st – The Bee Gees
Magical Mystery Tour – The Beatles
Axis: Bold as Love – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
You get the idea. Then Lou and his VU crew come out with an album full of songs about doing drugs and S&M with lyrics which read like street poetry. Let’s take a quick tour of the album:
“I’m Waiting For The Man”
Lyrics:
I’m waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 125
Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I’m waiting for my man
“Heroin”
Lyrics:
I don’t know just where I’m going
But I’m gonna try for the kingdom, if I can
cause it makes me feel like I’m a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I’ll tell ya, things aren’t quite the same
When I’m rushing on my run
And I feel just like jesus son
And I guess that I just don’t know
And I guess that I just don’t know
“Venus In Furs”
Lyrics:
Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Clubs and bells, your servant, don’t forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart
I don’t know how much money Lou and the rest of the surviving members of the VU get from album sales these days, but they deserve your money. However, if you want to check out the album, here’s a link to a torrent.
by cameron | Dec 11, 2006 | Podcast, science, Uncategorized
I’m listening to the New Scientist Magazine’s podcast interview with Richard Dawkins. It’s really interesting stuff and it looks like a bunch of secular scientists from around the world are getting ready for the latest round in the Great War between Science and Religion for the minds of the human race. I’m personally one who agrees with Dawkins that the battle needs ramping up.
Speaking of religion… Father Bob Maguire wants me to help him set up a webcam in his church to record his Christmas Eve sermon. He’s the one priest I don’t mind helping out. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good webcam which could capture a high-res image inside a church? We need to somehow set up a simple capture system that Bob’s people can operate. They will need to be able to focus, capture, save the file, and then I’ll help them figure out how to upload it to our servers.
by cameron | Dec 11, 2006 | Christianity, free will, Uncategorized
Last week, after the very excellent STIRR Sydney event, me old mate Brenton Perry (remember him from our free will cast?) drank beer and discussed how free will doesn’t exist, how we will save Shane from Christianity, why you shouldn’t take your position on global warming from Michael Crichton, and how damn insignificant humans are in the whole scheme of things and arrogant it is of those humans how think the whole universe was created just for them. And then I happened to stumble onto this six-month old post from Dick Hardt which puts our place in the Universe into some perspective. I highly recommend you check it out.
I’m currently reading Ideas: A Brief History by Peter Watson and it’s very enjoyable. Today I was learning about FOXP2 (“forkhead box P2”), a gene that is implicated in the development of language skills. Many scientists believe evolved in humans about 200,000 years ago and which, when mutated, gave early homo sapiens the ability to communicate which of course gave them an enormous survival advantage. The same genes appears in mice and chimps, with only a couple of molecules different from the version that we have.
And I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Richard Dawkins’ new book “The God Delusion”. The preface is here to read in pdf format. Sounds like a brilliant book and I’m going to try to get him on the show. Father Bob should love that.
by cameron | Dec 10, 2006 | Podcast, Uncategorized
Tonight Scott Sherman and I recorded a lengthy podcast mostly covering the release of the new Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut DVD. We talk about the original theatrical release of the film, some of the background as to why Donner left the production, and some of the story around the new cut of the film. Check it out here or….
PRESS TO PLAY
[audio:http://movie.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/tpn_movie_20061210_037.mp3]
