Cameron's Brain

my pompeii photo being used in a book

pompeii skull enhanced
Originally uploaded by cameronreilly.

I've just received an email from Oslo asking permission to use this photo I took in a book on natural disasters coming out in Norway this year! I'm chuffed.

Poly The Pollie

Here's my idea of the day:

We all suspect our politicians are lying to us. Especially in the last few years. So why don't we make them sit a polygraph (aka lie detector) test?

Okay, maybe we can't force them to sit for one, but we can certainly decide whether or not we'll vote for them based on whether or not they have sat for a public, screened over the internet, lie detector test and had to answer a detailed series of questions about their policies and intentions. I'm not interested in their personal life, whether or not they ever inhaled, inserted a cigar into a cavity, or had an affair. I want to know what they stand for and what they will do about it.

We all know a polygraph test isn't 100% accurate. But so what? They aren't going to jail if they get it wrong, I'm just making a decision as to whether or not I will vote for them.

So... I say... in 2006 and beyond, I will not vote for any politician who will not sit for a public polygraph.

POLY THE POLLIE.

TPN's first video podcast

Our first video podcast launches today on The Gaming Show! Congrats to Aaron and Michael for leading the way. Check out their excellent use of a green screen!

T-Shirt Protests

I don't know who this photo belongs to or who the guy is in the tee or even when it was taken (my mum emailed me the photo... she's such a spammer these days that I'm pretty sure she's working for the Russian Mafia and is attempting a lamo DoS) but I love it and want to see more of it. Forget about tying yourself to a tree or lying down in front of bulldozers. Forget about blogging, podcasting or any other form of active protest. Just wear a tee, stand next to the subject of your protest, get your photo taken, distribute it on the web, and see if you can embarrass your victim into stopping whatever behaviour it is that you dislike. Although I don't think the PM is stupid. I think he knows exactly what he's doing.

BTW, I've just read John Pilger's "The New Rulers Of The World". It's a brilliantly written and incredibly excrutiating (not in a James Frey "Million Little Pieces" kind of way) series of cogent essays which document the sinister methods our western governments have used in the last 30 years to subjugate countries such as Indonesia and Iraq. It also has an damning critique of Australia's racism. I've got to track him down for a chat.

And, if you've got nothing better to do, check out the latest Productivity Show (an interview with GTD expert Jason Womack) and G'Day World (interview with UK chick rock band 'Planet Of Women').

Like travelling?

Then check out The Travel Show, launching today on TPN!

Gadget Show wins Best Australian Podcast

Ben Barren sent me this news:

2006 Best Australian Podcast or Video Blog

This years 2 horse race was in the category of

Best Australian Podcast or Video Blog

The winner taking out 58.8% of the vote is:

The Gadget Show

beating the only other nominee, G'day World

Congrats to Rich Giles! I don't mind being beaten by him. :-)

And also:

2006 Best Australian Tech Blog

The CLEAR winner of the

Best Australian Tech Blog award is

The Gadget Show

beating everyone with a massive 52.4% of the primary vote, which meant no preferences were needed. For the record Problogger.net was second with 14.3% and the others nominees weren’t far behind.

In Pod We Trust - Edinburgh Evening News

In Pod We Trust - Edinburgh Evening News’ Podcast Article

Ewan Spence (of TPN Rock, Edinburgh Fringe and TPN Movies fame) cops his whack in The Edinburgh Evening News. Check out the whacky photos.

Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly.... at first

Alvin from the Life Coaches Blog has this great story :

Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly…at first.

Being an animation student, one book I read was Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones, a pioneer animator and director of the old Looney Tunes cartoons so many of us know and love. A story from that book made a deep impression on me, and even though I don’t remember it exactly, I want to share the gist of it with you.

When he was starting out, Chuck was told by a senior animator that everyone has about 10,000 (I don’t remember the exact number here) lousy drawings in them they need to get rid of, before they can really start drawing.’

According to Chuck he used that line to spur him onwards, sometimes drawing and re-drawing his work again and again just so he could get that one perfect drawing.

Whenever you do something new, you will most likely suck at it, or even fall flat on your face. Be prepared for it, it’s natural. Finding something difficult can be a sign that you’re learning something new, if it’s too easy it’s probably has elements of what you already know.

great story Alvin. It often surprises me when people I know won't try something new because they are scared of "looking like an idiot". That's a pretty messed up way of looking at life. Hell, I figure people already think I'm an idiot, so what do I have to lose??

 

When we started The Podcast Network a year ago, I had no idea what it took to run a media company. I'd never been in the media business. I'd never run a company. We'd only been podcasting for a couple of months. But I just kept telling myself "well, cmon, how hard can it be?" And hell, we've made LOTS of mistakes. Keep making them every day. But you learn. You get smarter. I remember reading the BRW Rich 200 (an annual list of Australia's wealthiest individuals) many years ago and realizing that many of our most successful businesspeople had failed over and over in business until they finally got it right.

Get ready for HERETIC!!

For the first time ever, a novel currently available on bookstore shelves, released by a major New York publisher, will be podcast in its entirety beginning January 31st. HERETIC (Pocket Books, Mass Market Original, October 2005) is the first volume in a new dark fantasy series known as The Templar Chronicles, written by International Horror Guild Award nominee, Joseph Nassise. The complete novel will be released in a free, thirty-episode, weekly podcast read by Nassise and sponsored by The Horror Channel and The Podcast Network.

Read more here.....

West Wing gets the axe

NBC has axed The West Wing. While I didn't think it would survive at all after NBC sacked creator Aaron Sorkin and Rob Lowe quit, it did, and although the writing was never the same, they managed to pull together interesting storylines and characters over the last couple of seasons. I guess this means they don't have to worry about what they do to write Leo out of the story. I'll miss it - in our house, WW was one of the great TV shows that we could binge on. We'd regularly watch a couple of episodes in a night, dying to see what happened next. Now we'll have to hang out for STUDIO 7 ON SUNSET STRIP.