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Hello Mr Cooper! Beer please!

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Do you remember this 57-second sequence from last week’s episode of Stilgherrian Live Alpha?

Yes, I blatantly demanded free beer.

Well, I asked for beer in return for a plug for the brewery. Such is the nature of a commercial exchange, right? Fair’s fair.

I thought I’d better put the clip online and bring it to the attention of the folks at Coopers Brewery in Adelaide and see if they come up with the goods.

I’ve just sent them an email. While it’s obviously extremely short notice, I’ll let you know how I go. With luck I’ll have a case of nice cleansing Coopers Ale to help the program go smoothly.

[By the way, the concert I refer to was the “Time To Act” concert for AIDS awareness which was held in Rymill Park, Adelaide. A great gig, which I’ll tell you about some other time.]

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Slavedriver Rudd fails the exploitation test

My good friend Stephen Stockwell asks whether, after a week of reports that our new Prime Minister is driving his public servants too hard, we could call Rudd the Australian Federal Government’s answer to Jason Calacanis? Perhaps he’s onto something.

In The Age today, author and lawyer Dr Mirko Bagaric reckons the ultimate test of character is when a person has unchecked power. “That is why at work you can get a pretty good gauge of the character of your bosses but not your underlings,” he says. “They are too busy being nice to you to try to get ahead.”

So what does Bagaric make of the many, many reports of public servants complaining that Rudd has turned their lives into a “nightmare” through overwork? Bagaric says, “Rudd has spectacularly failed the exploitation test.”

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Aussie mobile providers “like deer in the iPhone headlights”

Dropping into Day 2 of the Mobile Content World conference last week was a step back in time. And not in a healthy Kyliesque mirror ball way. The hyper-connected Twitter rumour mill had told me something was wrong: they didn’t seem to understand what was happening. The rumours were right.

When user experience expert Oliver Weidlich of Ideal Interfaces showed them screenshots of the iPhone on the big screen, around 80% of the 150-odd audience sat up, alert, seeing it for the first time.

Huh?

Sure, Apple’s groundbreaking product isn’t officially available here until the (rumoured) 19 June opening of slick new Apple stores in Sydney and Melbourne. You don’t have to have bought into the whole Steve Jobs personality cult, bought one overseas and hacked it for Aussie networks. But if you claim to be professional and haven’t at least read about the iPhone a year after its release you should be shot.

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My week through Twitter

Hugh MacLeod stylised cartoon of a twittering bird

As we begin a new and somewhat rainy Monday here in Sydney, it’s worth reflecting on my world as revealed through Twitter.

  1. If only cats ate cockroaches my two most significant household chores would cancel out.
  2. The only thing a VCR is good for is to watch old porno movies.
  3. “Luxurious possum fur” is an oxymoron.
  4. Twitter is (like all networks) just an amplifier. Natural news-bringers bring news. Natural wankers wank.
  5. Total Eclipse of the Heart has the most sensible music video of any song ever.
  6. “Wynyard Hotel, the sign saying ‘restrooms maintained to highest standard’ doesn’t stop stale urine smell.”
  7. As we all know, cardio fitness is improved through gin.
  8. “Do not insert in ear canal” is sage advice.

Now what sort of impression of me does that give? And what will this week bring?

[Credit: Cartoon Twitter-bird courtesy of Hugh MacLeod. Like all of Hugh’s cartoons published online, it’s free to use.]