by cameron | Jan 14, 2008 | Podcast
As you many have noticed, I recently launched a new religion which I’m calling “LOTU”, the Laws Of The Universe. If you missed that news, read this. On January 11, 2007, I held the very first church meeting of LOTU. As befits a 21st century religion, I held it in Second Life at TPN HQ. It wasn’t a huge turnout – about 6 people joined me for the session you hear recorded on this podcast and then another 6 or 7 people turned up later on, and we discussed LOTU into the evening.
To join the LOTU Facebook group (where you’ll be notified of upcoming meetings, etc), go here.
To join the LOTU discussion group, go here.
Stick Figures
“Stretch The Truth” (mp3)
from “Future Classic Exclusives Vol 1”
(Future Classic)
Buy at Inertia Distribution (Australia)
Buy at Amazon
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.
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.
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!
by cameron | Jan 8, 2008 | Australian media, Podcast
Today I chat with Bronwen Clune, Founder and CEO of Norg Media, an independent Australian media company that allows anyone to contribute to the news as a Cit J (citizen journalist).
We talk about her vision for Norg (which stands for “news organisation”), how the media landscape is changing, and about being a female entrepreneur (my first ever female entrepreneur guest in 3 years??? WTF?).
It’s great to finally have Australia’s other online media entrepreneur on the show.
Bronwen is very popular on Twitter and you can follow her by clicking the photo below:
Thanks to @m0nty, @jodiem and @glemak for their questions submitted via Twitter during the show. Sorry to everyone else, you were too slow. 🙂
The track on today’s show is:
Burial
“Ghost Hardware” (mp3)
from “Untrue”
(Hyperdub)
Buy at iTunes Music Store
Stream from Rhapsody
Buy at Amazon
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.
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.
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!
by cameron | Jan 5, 2008 | Atheism, science
As you know, over the last year I’ve been working on a book about religion. During this time, while I’ve been debating the subject with people on the show and in person, one of the common arguments I’ve heard for keeping religion is “people need something to believe in”. I used to scoff at this statement. I certainly don’t feel that need. I’m happy with my own assessments of what’s right, what’s wrong, what is true and what is false. However, it struck me recently that perhaps other people aren’t like me. Perhaps they do need help figuring answers to the big questions. Perhaps they would like a place to gather on a regular basis with like-minded people to discuss the subjects of life, the universe and everything. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons religion continues to survive in the 21st century.
Atheism doesn’t have such a place. As an atheist, I don’t have a place where I can gather with other atheists to discuss “the big questions”. And, while this isn’t a problem for me, I got to thinking that perhaps it might be a hurdle for the new atheists, the people who are reading Dawkins and Hitchens and are preparing themselves to let go of superstition and mythology to embrace critical thinking and logic.
Scientific literature, and working scientists, rarely seem to attempt to play the role of answering the big questions either. There are exceptions, such as Carl Sagan, but these are truly the exceptions to the rule. Scientists provide us with the best information they have about how it all works and they leave it up to us to decide what that means to our individual lives.
So… I’ve decided to start a new religion which I’m calling
THE CHURCH OF LOTU.
“LOTU” stands for the “Laws Of The Universe”. The idea is that this religion, this church, will be fully based in science and critical thinking. It will not worship any mythological deity but will respect, and try to interpret, the laws of the universe as delivered to us by the latest scientific research. LOTU will also endorse the United Nations Charter on Human Rights. Unlike every other religion on the planet today, LOTU will not condemn people who do not agree with us to an eternity of torture and vilification. LOTU doesn’t care what you believe. LOTU respects your right to believe whatever makes you feel good. We may disagree with you. We may debate you vigorously. We may even chide you for believing in bronze age mythologies in the 21st century. We will also, however, fight for your right to believe whatever you want.
Yes, I know that the words “religion” and “church” seem to be incongruent with atheism but they need not. Wikipedia define ‘religion’ as:
“A religion is a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people, often codified as prayer, ritual, and religious law. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term “religion” refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.”
LOTU may well have all of those things. Note there is no mention of a supernatural deity in that description.
Wikipedia defines ‘church’ as:
“A church is an association of people with a common belief system, especially one that is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.”
LOTU is definitely the first but also, obviously, NOT the second. Christians have always been fond of stealing ideas from older traditions (Easter, Christians, monotheism… hell, even the Jesus story is a rip-off of Mithra), so I feel quite comfortable stealing one of their words.
At the moment, I’m working on writing the “scripture” for LOTU but, as I’ve leaked word of it to a few people over the last week, I thought I should throw the doors open and let those of you who wish to join me in the creation of the first new religion for the 21st century. This is Religion 2.0.
To start with, I’ve created a Facebook group (I know, BOO! HISS!) for us to discuss the idea. I hope a few of you will join me.
by cameron | Jan 3, 2008 | Podcast
The first show of 2008! My guest today is local Yarraville boy Steve Sammartino, founder of Rentoid.com. I love Steve’s approach to his business and his entrepreneurial spirit in general. He came around to Casa del Reilly this morning to talk about the Rentoid site, why he left his big income corporate marketing job and how he lives on his investment dividends. It’s a great show to start the year with!
**update 2017-05-29** – unfortunately it looks like the audio for this interview disappeared in a server crash many years ago. You might like
this interview with Steve instead.
by cameron | Dec 30, 2007 | Melbourne, Uncategorized
Over the last few months I’ve been wrestling with the notion that there should be some kind of framework for geeks to do something positive in their local community. Something that isn’t tied to any particular religious, political or social agenda. Something that plays on the strengths of geeks and doesn’t require a full-time commitment but also involves more than just writing a cheque or a blog.
After a chat with Father Bob Maguire (from TPN’s Father Bob Show and the guy who has been the inspiration for much of my thinking in this area), his co-host Michaela and Michael Leone from Gnoos a month or so ago, I realized that perhaps we should pull together a group of people together and workshop ideas on what we could do, together, to make a difference in our local communities. I don’t have the answers. Hell, I don’t even know most of the right questions to ask. But I do feel that I could be, should be, doing more. I just need to work out what kinds of things I, we, can do. And I think it might be easier if we were to try to accomplish it in a group.
So, with that in mind, I’m kicking off “Geeks Who Care” with a meeting at Bob’s place (Cnr Dorcas and Montague Sts, South Melbourne) on January 27th. I’m hoping we’ll get a small group of like-minded individuals to come together to workshop ideas. From there we can put together a framework, steps forward (kind of like how we started MODM early last year). I’m sure most of you will have more of an idea about what we should be doing that I do. I’m an idiot. I’ve already had a few great ideas given to me and I’m sure between now and Jan 27 I’ll get a lot more. There is a Facebook event set up for the meetup. Get to it here (link) and the main domain, GeeksWhoCare.com, currently re-directs to a Facebook group for general discussion. For those of you itching to tell me how much you hate Facebook – save it, I’m not interested.
Perhaps, if this one works out, we can set up similar groups around the country, around the world even… hell, let’s put one on Mars. Those poor little green guys needs our help too. Martians are humans too you know.
