Brent's Blog » Life

Homosapiens: Scum Of The Earth

Brent — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 04:52:42 +0000

Ok – firstly a little housekeeping – Yes I know its been over a month since my last post, but I have been rather busy with work, podcasts and something resembling a social life. I will attempt to make a few more regular updates, even if it is just to say “Isn’t the weather nice this time of year”

Now – on to the subject of this post – and I will warn you in advance that it is a venting of anger on my part – so if you’re easily offended, have a weak constitution or have some sort of medical complaint – then please continue reading as you’ll be the first to die in preparation for the final solution.

On the weekend just passed, I had a very good friend of mine travel 12 hours by train to come and spend some time with me. We had a great weekend, lots of fun, and then he departed on Sunday for another 12 hour train ride back to Lismore where he is studying.

He was due to arrive at some rediculous hour of the morning on Monday, so I left it until Monday evening to call him to make sure he got home OK.

This is moment at which my belief that Homosapiens as a species should be extinguished, was born.

My friend tells me that whilst he is on the train ride home, he falls asleep for a couple of hours. Nothing wrong with that I think, perfectly understandable – we did have a big weekend. He wakes up at his destination, and goes to collect his bag, which he had placed directly above him in the overhead storage.

You should be able to work out where this is going by now… Yes, it was gone. No sign of it. It would appear that someone had taken it and got off at a previous station, all while my friend dozed.

So, my friend has lost most of his life – Laptop, Personal data, uni work, wallet, money, licence – basically everything but the clothes on his back.

Of course, he reports it to station security and police – but is politely told he’ll never see his stuff again.

This is the point where I say to myself “Why can’t these people, who are paid to help in such instances, be bothered to do anything”. *EVERY* platform at *EVERY* train station is monitored 24/7 with video cameras and this is recorded for use in exactly this sort of situation. All they have to do is check 2 minutes of video from each of the stations after my friend fell asleep to see someone getting off the train with his bag. Then they just have to check the ticketing database, as each ticket has a name and phone number attached to it.

But they just can’t be bothered.

You may think that this one isolated incident is hardly cause for the extermination of Homosapiens, but that was the icing on the cake, and its what got me thinking.

Globally, the planet is falling apart. Crime is on the increase. Wars are breaking out.

Homosapiens have had 10,000 years – With the population at current levels, the gene pool is capable of faster change – Its time for the next step. Its time for change. Its time to fix this mess.

Homosuperior – A Better World By Better People.

The Future

Brent — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 06:12:10 +0000

There is something on the horizon

Something dark, elusive

It has a shape and form, but it’s not clear

It knows my name

Its calling for me, beconing me closer

I can’t see what it is

I don’t know what it wants

I’m scared

My Escape From The Darkness

Brent — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:31:47 +0000

First of all, I’d like to say thanks to all the well-wishers out there who sent their comments on Twitter etc. over the last week whilst I was in, what I can only describe as the worst pain I have ever had.

Its nearing 3 years I’ve had my braces on, and NEVER in all that time have I experienced mind-numbing pain like I have in the past week.

Due to the length of time I’ve had them on, the Orthodontist decided to try an experimental wire, hideously expensive as I understand, but supposed to be extremely flexible and almost unbreakable. I’m well known for breaking the wires in my braces on a more-than-regular basis, so anything that can resist my iron jaw is welcome.

However, my teeth are/were in a ‘transitional’ state, where a massive amount of movement was required before my bite would align again. For some reason, it was just the right combination of pulling and pushing that made my head feel like it was about to cave in.

But anyways – that’s all over now, and I’m back to my cheery self again!

A Quick (and needed) Update

Brent — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:30:34 +0000

Ok – its really been an unacceptably long time since my last post.

But I do have an excuse

I’m now working full-time – the past couple of weeks have been extremely busy with interviews and what not, as well as getting myself up-to-speed in the new job.

For those of you scratching your heads going “What? He never told me!” (and you know who you are) It wouldn’t hurt you to pick up the phone and call once in a while and rather than asking for something YOU want, ask about how *I* am going in general. I have now come to the realisation that most of the people who call me are only looking for something they want, only only call when they want something – I *NEVER* get phone calls out of the blue from people just asking “How are you? What have you been up to?” It really is quite a sad state of affairs.

Anyway – I *PROMISE* (and I don’t have my fingers crossed behind my back – honest!) I will do another blog update over the weekend.

Until then – make sure you’re tuning in to Tech Wired Australia live on Saturday night 7:30 Eastern Australian Time for another exciting episode Also make sure you check out the latest Aussie Tech Head podcast which should be out sometime later today, as I was part of the live broadcast of that after Tech Wired Australia on Wednesday night. Another famous podcast due out over the weekend will be TechAU with Jason Cartwright – be sure to check his out with his High Definition video and all!

Up VERY Late with Brent and Ben

Brent — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 08:37:56 +0000

Well, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights this past week certainly had me up way past my bedtime!

Ben and I have been doing live video podcasts on uStream of a rather ‘extended’ version of our Tech Wired Australia show.

Thursday night, we were joined live by Jason Cartwright of TechAU.tv fame, and discussed a lot of the technical aspects of podcasting. I highly recommend checking his High-Definition podcast out, if you haven’t already – his production quality rivals some of the studio created shows out there. We also had around 50 viewers watching us at one point!

Last night (Saturday) was the longest, at around 8 hours with a 45 minute break in the middle. We managed to cover a huge number of topics in great depth which is a slight departure from the normal 30 minute show on Wednesday and Saturday nights.

Also last night, we had some great viewers in the chat room, asking us some tech-related questions. We were helping a guy in Yorkshire, England to install FreeNAS on an old PC he had, and connect to it with his Mac.

Unfortunately, it got to around 3:00am, I was getting very sleepy and in turn started to get snappy (telling Ben to shut up several times – I must apologise for that!). I think we managed to get the caller ALMOST sorted, but had given him a lot to go on to get himself to the point where he could start playing around with the FreeNAS system to get it to work just the way he wanted.

We’ve certainly had a lot of fun doing the extended broadcasts, and Im sure we will be doing a lot more of them. However I fear it will be an early night for me tonight as I have anotehr busy week ahead of me – but we shall see what happens

My World of Online Media

Brent — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 11:40:37 +0000

Today marks my second episode of the Tech Wired Australia podcast. We had to record a little earlier today, as Ben had other commitments he had to attend to during our normal broadcasting time.

The podcast should be available as an audio download a little later on, but not sure about the video stream, as Ben’s upload speed is rather restrictive and uStream was having troubles catching up – but we’ll see.

On other ‘online media’ news, I happened across an email I received from Joost. Now, I downloaded and installed Joost on my main PC around 6 months ago, and played around a bit with it then, but basically, its never been run since. With the email, and a spot of free time on my hands, I thought I’d have another look at it.

I went to the website and downloaded the latest version, and while it was installing had a look around on their forums. Ideally, I’d prefer a Media Centre version of it so I could run it on my Media PC that’s connected to the television. However, this is not to be. The only have 2 versions – one for PC and the other for Mac – and both of them are stand alone applications. I can’t even navigate the software using the media centre remote control.

Basically, Joost is a rival to TV Tonic. However, in my opinion, TV Tonic is the far superior product. It has a stand alone application (although it only works with Internet Explorer – a browser independent version would be good) but more importantly, has a Media Centre plugin.

The Joost interface is clumsy and not very intuitive – it can only be navigated with a mouse, the channel icons are very oversized (they could better use the window real-estate to describe the channels in more detail) and the sorting and grouping of the channels is very haphazard.

The most annoying feature of Joost, is that it ONLY streams video live from their servers. With TV Tonic, you select the channels you want, and it downloads them for you to watch whenever you like. The TV Tonic service application also allows you to set time restrictions on when it can download as well as throttling the bandwidth it uses. This is especially handy for people who havepeak and off-peak download restrictions where they can set the service to only download in off-peak hours.

All in all, I think until Joost offers a Media Centre plugin, and allows downloading/caching of its content, its a big ‘uninstall’ from me.

In other online media news – check out this Microsoft advert – it was made around 12 months ago, and I appear in it twice – look for my beady eyes peering out from on top of my monitor LOL!

Oh – and dont forget to have a look at the new page I’ve added – TV Shows I Watch

My First Podcast

Brent — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:26:17 +0000

Well, the last few days have been rather full-on to say the least!

With my daylight hours being packed with interviews, and my evenings catching up on blogs, podcasts and my regular tv shows, its barely given me a chance to catch my breath!

Last night marked my debut in the podcasting community with me teaming up with Ben produce Tech Wired Australia.

We broadcast live video over uStream, and then an edited audio version put up on the Tech Wired Australia website.

Here are the links:
Recordeded Live on uStream
Downloadable edited Audio

I really enjoyed doing the podcast, and look forward to the next one on Saturday. I’ll hopefully soon get into a good rhythm and not babble on so much LOL

I hope you all check out the podcast, and the other ones associated with The Secret Hub – and tune in again on Saturday for the next episode! Leave some comments and feedback too!

Duck for Cover!!

Brent — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:10:12 +0000

Its been a couple of days since my last post, mainly due to the fact that nothing has really been happening.

I did do a live Vodcast on Ustream with Ben and Chris from Tech Wired Australia on Sunday evening – that was a lot of fun – apart from the fact the magnetic power cable for my MacBook kept popping off (and since the battery is dead, it was bye bye streaming). Special thanks to Ben and Chris for the opportunity – hopefully some more in the near future!

Have just been having a couple of military helicopters buzzing the roof of my building – I expect they are doing exercises to prepare for the Pope’s impending visit for World Youth Day. I took a quick photo from my kitchen window as one zipped past – attached below.

The news last night had a story on the amount of traffic restrictions etc. that are going to be in place for the Pope’s visit – and its outrageous! More than for APEC and The Olympics combined apparently. As one wise woman on the news story pointed out “They should ask the public if we WANT these big events that impact our daily routines so much – I’m sure they’d find we DON’T want them” – a very accurate surmation in my opinion. I just want to know who is PAYING for all of this? Via a cheque marked “Coffers Of The Vatican”? I think not.

On that note, I’ll proceed to pour half of my cup of coffee in my lap, to go along with the bowl of 2-minute noodles from lunch. I seem to have the dropsies today

Adventure, Excitement and Really Wild Things

Brent — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:10:50 +0000

Well, today has been an unending torrent of drama….
At around 12noon, I was sat sitting at my desk, and was frightened (more than) half to death by a very scruffy looking guy standing inside of my room, about 2 feet away from me. I normally leave my door open during the day for some fresh air to circulate through my room – with all my gear running all the time it tends to get rather hot. The guy was as silent as a ghost – as I didn’t even notice him coming up the stairs, or even entering my room to stand so close.
He asked “if I was part of the transition” – whatever the hell that was supposed to mean. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, and what he wanted. He said he was waiting for someone.
He walked out of my room at that point, and went into the bathroom down the hall, and closed the door. He was in there for quite some time (I was keeping an ear out for him) and at one point I heard him slam the doors on the bathroom cabinet, so he was looking around and through everything.
When he came out of the bathroom, he went downstairs for a little while. I then heard him come back upstairs, past my room, and up to the room on the top floor. I heard some keys jiggling at that point, and I wondered if it was perhaps the guy from upstairs, but I know he doesn’t usually get up till late, and I didn’t see him go out earlier (we always say a quick ‘hi’ if I see him walk past my door). After a few moments, he came back downstairs, and I glanced him as he again walked past my door. This time I got up and asked him what he was doing here, and who he was visiting. He told me that he was here doing maintenance, but was waiting for someone to arrive. I asked him maintenance on what (as he could have been here legitimately due to the renovations currently going on in the building). After a little ‘umm and arring’ he said “the stuff downstairs”. I didn’t really believe him, and told him if that was the case, then to wait downstairs and not wander the corridors. He then walked back downstairs at this point.
I got straight on the phone to the Real Estate Agent, who called up the owner while I was on the phone to her. The owner described a man who may possibly been here for the renovations (who I have seen here before) but this guy wandering around today was definitely not him.
After I finished on the phone to the Real Estate Agent, I got strai8ght on the phone to the police (I actually dialled 000! – Interestingly enough, when I was asked whether I wanted Police, Fire or Ambulance, the dispatcher dialled up the police, but they didn’t answer! LOL!) I told the police the situation, and they said they would send someone over.
Whilst I waited for the police, I kept an ear out for this guy, to see if he came back upstairs – which he did.
He went into the room next door, which apparently wasn’t locked. The room is currently vacant, and there were cleaners in there yesterday cleaning the carpet (with a terrible smell!) and I guess they didn’t lock the door after they finished.
I heard some banging noises, and what sounded like him jumping out of the window onto the corrugated iron of the veranda about 2 feet below the window. That was the last I heard.
An HOUR after I called the police, they finally arrived – 3 of them in a paddy-wagon.
The police knocked on the door to the room next door, but obviously no response. They asked me to call the owner or Real Estate Agency to get the keys to open the door. I called them up but while I was on the phone on hold, the police wanted me to go downstairs and show them the veranda etc, so I hung up at that point.
They went out the back and I showed them where the window is in relation to the veranda and how easily he could have gotten out that way. They told me that if I see him again, not to approach him and to call them straight away.
Shortly thereafter, two people from the Real Estate Agency arrived, and unlocked the room next door, but of course, it was empty. The lock on the window had been broken however, so I helped the agency out by taking a couple of photos of the damage, and emailing it back to their office.
I thought that was the end of the excitement, until the guy from down the hall came home, only to find that the poor guy had everything of value he had, stolen.
The window to his room also backs on to the veranda, and this guy has gained access to his room that way. I told the guy not to touch anything, as they would probably want to take photographs and fingerprints. I didn’t think at the time, I should have come to the rescue with my digital camera again, and taken some pictures myself!
I called the Real Estate Agent as soon as the guy had discovered all his stuff gone, but the agent I usually speak with was in a meeting, but I left a message with the person who answered the phone saying what had happened, and that we were about to call the police again.
On calling the police, the person I spoke with said that they needed to speak with the guy who had been broken into, as he was the only one who could report the incident.
They were on the phone for 5 or so minutes, when the guy from down the hall handed the phone back to me saying they wanted to speak to me again. The guy is an overseas student, I’m not too sure where he’s from, but his accent sounds possibly french. Anyway, the woman on the phone said she wanted to clarify a few things as she had a little difficulty understanding what the guy was saying. Suffice to say, she had just as much trouble understanding me, as I had had a few cups of coffee earlier in the day, and the adrenalin was pumping at the time as well!
That’s the end of the story (so far), as I didn’t see any sign of the police coming back after the guy had finished on the phone (and I was keeping an eye out the window for them, as none of the doorbells in this place work)
Any further updates to the drama of the day will have to be in another post – this one is turning out to be War And Peace!
I just thought I’d put down my recollection of the days events in here while they were fresh in my mind, and I can always refer the Police to my post for their reports – I can always do with more hits to my site!! LOL