• Danger Room Debrief: How to do Defense, When the Money’s Gone | Danger Room from Wired.com: “The current global economic and financial meltdown may yet become something worse: a protracted global depression. As with the last century’s Depression, which spawned fascism and WWII, it could recast the world at a fundamental level. As such, it may soon represent our biggest security challenge in over 50 years.”
• The Power of Nightmares | YouTube: The 2.5-minute introduction to The Power of Nightmares, to give you a flavour of the full 3-hour documentary series.
• The Power Of Nightmares (DVD) | Internet Archive: This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today: “Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today’s nightmare vision of a secret organized evil that threatens the world, a fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful.” The full DVD image is free to download.
• Irrelevant Al Qaeda | Jon Taplin’s Blog: Is it time to declare Al Qaeda irrelevant and downgrade the War on Terror a police action that’s just mopping up the stragglers?
• Mother Earth Mother Board | Wired 4.12: A massive 1993 feature article in which Neal Stephenson toured six countries following the roll-out of fibre optic cables. It introduced me to his writing and it remains an excellent read today.
• The End | Flickr: A collection of classic “The End” title cards from a wide variety of films.
• Fiscal Conservative vs. Tax & Spend Liberal | Be the signal: Another variation of an infographic pointing out that the Republicans don’t have the best track record for the US economy.
• Opinion graph | Junk Charts: On average, the US stock market does much better under Democrat Presidents than Republicans, as this graph shows.
• How Twittering Critics Brought Down Motrin Mom Campaign | Advertising Age: A groundswell of opinion on Twitter caused Johnson & Johnson to pull an adverting campaign.
• Thesis Theme for WordPress | DIY Themes: A high-quality but not-free theme framework for WordPress. While I currently use the free Tarski theme for my website maybe this is worth a look at some point.
• NSW Parliamentary Research: Mandatory ISP filtering is not what it seems | Internet Industry Association: Research by the NSW Parliamentary Library shows that Senator Conroy’s claims about other nations’ compulsory Internet censorship regimes are wrong.
• Kerr's curse | ABC Unleashed: If nothing else, I love this essay for the phrase “cardboard cutout think tanks”. But there are many other reasons to like it.
• Internet Censorship and the Irukandji Jellyfish | First Dog on the Moon: Only First Dog on the Moon could successfully combine Senator Conroy’s Internet censorship plan and jellyfish in one cartoon.
• PG Nation | ABC Unleashed: An interesting essay about the neo-wowserism of the Rudd government.
• Europa Film Treasures: An archive of European cinematographic treasures. It looks like there’s a lot of material here.
• The Trojan Horse | Business Spectator: “The current government policy of forcing ISPs to offer their customers a so-called ‘clean feed’ has the overt intention of helping parents to protect their kids while surfing the Internet. It is, we are told, all about child protection. However, the use of content filtering to make the Internet ‘safer’ for kids is already available, to the extent that any statistically significant real demand exists to solve it.”
• Failing hard drive sounds | Datacent: A collection of the sounds made by dying hard disc drives. Yes, they can be used in music provided you contact these guys first.
• 19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv | NewTeeVee: Abraham K Biggs committed suicide on Wednesday while broadcasting himself on video site Justin.tv. Apparently the 19yo Floridian was egged on by commenters on Justin.tv and forum users on bodybuilding.com. The article canvasses some of the legal and ethical issues.

I can’t be “objective” about Marcus Westbury and his truly awesome TV series Not Quite Art. Marcus, I am totally envious and I want to have your babies!

OK, failing that (for various biological and logistical reasons) I’ll simply demand that everyone — and I do mean everyone — watch Not Quite Art when series two is squeezed like a threatening pimple from ABC1′s transmitters across Australia tonight at 10pm. Or ABC2 at 7pm Sunday. Or streamed from ABC iView. Or downloaded illegally from the torrents.

Quite frankly, if you reckon you’re interested in “art” and “culture” and how it’s evolving, then you must consider Marcus’ worldview. If you fail to watch this program, you’re missing out on a delightful, witty and above all intelligent journey.

Now I suppose I’ll have to explain why this series is so important…

First, though, I’d better explain why I can’t be “objective” — in quotes because I think this whole “objective” thing about writing reviews and journalism is a crock of shit. We all have our biases and pre-conceived ideas — whether we like them or not, whether we even realise it or not — so we might as well try to put them on the table.

My bias?

I want Marcus’ job!

But I’m not cool enough any more.

Sulk.

Back in 1993 I discovered the writing of Neal Stephenson through the pages of Wired magazine. While researching his massive article Mother Earth Mother Board the “hacker tourist”, as he was styled, travelled three continents following the route of the global fibre optic network, writing entertainingly about its history and its impact.

I was jealous. Stephenson had the freedom to spend several months and 42,000 words on something he loved and was paid for it. I wanted to do that! Travel, and write and talk about stuff I’m interested in.

Then last year I read Marcus Westbury’s opinion piece Mozart cover bands rake in the moolah, about how “an overwhelming amount of arts funding in Australia goes to organisations that either exclusively or primarily play covers”.

Think symphony orchestras, opera companies and state theatre companies that produce comparatively little in the way of original, innovative or even Australian work. Like classic hits radio, they are busting out the chart-toppers of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries…

[G]rab yourself a copy of the Australia Council’s annual report. The nation’s cover bands, mostly the state-based symphony orchestras, collectively receive just under $50 million each year from the council.

Whether that figure seems average or outrageous would depend on the context that you choose to put it in. The context that I put it in is the $4.8 million pool that every single musician in Australia who isn’t in a symphony orchestra competes for every year. That’s more than a 10-fold disparity between the orchestras and everyone else combined.

Wow! This certainly resonated with my thoughts. And then:

Culture isn’t something that happened in Europe centuries ago that needs preservation. It’s actually all that messy, beautiful, inspiring and wonderful stuff that is happening around us right now. Arts funding should reward innovation not preservation and vibrancy over bureaucracy

Yes! Precisely!

I watched Not Quite Art series 1 — which of all the programs the ABC put into that 10pm Tuesday arts timeslot pulled the biggest audience — and I loved this man’s worldview. He trotted around Australia showing us the cool stuff!

So I was well pleased when I pressed “play” on the preview DVD the lovely people at ABC TV sent me and heard these words at the start of Not Quite Art series 2 episode 1, “Culture Shock”:

This is a series about culture. Not just this kind of culture [gesturing to the theatre around him] but the living cultures all around us — the ones that are evolving and changing so rapidly that if you nod off for a little while, well, you just might miss it.

Marcus and his nerdy brown pullover led me on a journey through living cultures including Newcastle-bred DJ Mark Newlands, who referred to “the cave-man era before the Internet” and reminded us that “Technology marches on. Either get with it or get fucked”; video game critic Ben “Yahtze” Croshaw whose program pulls 4 million viewers; animator Paul Robertson, who reaches his global audience from his bedroom; a wonderful woman called Jodi Rose who records the sounds that bridges make; and to a remote part of the Northern Territory (pictured above, where Marcus removes his pullover!) and… well I won’t tell you all the tales.

But then he said something which had me spluttering my coffee and and gasping for breath.

What interests me isn’t the technology, but how it’s changing us.

Damn you, Westbury! I said that! On my About Stilgherrian page! Well, in a few more words…

I’m not that interested in technology itself. I’m more interested in the social questions.

What does it all mean for your life? Your family? Your business? Your community? For the law and politics? How will it change the very core of what it means to be human?

This little cunt Marcus Westbury is not only thinking my thoughts, he’s getting paid to put them on TV!

So I take it all back! Do not watch this program. It’s a program I’d want to make, if I were still hip and cool and knew people at the bloody ABC. Do not watch Not Quite Art.

There is no such thing as a “space”.

There is such a thing as a market — that’s a group of people who will directly or indirectly pay money for something.

There is such a thing as a product — that’s an offering of a new kind of good or service that is brought to a market.

There is such a thing as a company — that’s an organized business entity that brings a product to a market.

Marc’s article goes on to explain why there’s no such thing as “Web 2.0″ either — in fact that’s its main thrust. It’s worth reading.

Hell, his entire blog is worth reading.

On the other hand, William Shakespeare is worth reading too.

So are P J O’Rourke, Daniel Petre, George Orwell, David Marr, John Birmingham, James Burke, George Lakoff, Brian Eno, Lao Tsu, Sherry Turkle, Steven Levy, Neal Stephenson, Umberto Eco, Richard Watts, Paul Graham, Bruce Schneier, Father Bob Maguire, Matt Ridley, Daniel Dennett, Zern Liew, Steven Levitt… but you’ve just got to draw the line somewhere!