Banning BMW

This is so stupid. Aparently BMW encourages Victorians to hoon, so much so that their new ad campaign has been banned from TV.

“Australia's advertising watchdog outlawed the ad for a BMW convertible because driving stunts shown in the clip would break Australian road rule laws.”

And again, demonstrating the futility of said ban, the article describing the ban actively links to the ad.

However if our benign overlords in the government who want to control everything Australians are allowed to see on the internet, had their way, would we be now prevented from accessing www.bmw.com? And anyway, if you are going to take away “speed” and “dangerous driving” from a car ad... exactly what would you be left with?

Probably not this…

"Burnout Paradise" - a computer game with truly awesome photorealistic car crashes.

What about movies with car chases? Does the advertising watchdog really believe Australians are so stupid that watching a BMW with painted tires skid around a warehouse is going to encourage hoons to skid around on real roads? Clearly the timing of such a ban is linked to recent tragedies and seems like a knee-jerk reaction which really won’t attack the underlying causes of these tragedies.

Or could it be that the advertising watchdog is too tied up not dealing with AMI ads that they needed to show Australians they’re actually doing something?

life doesn't get any better than this

Thursday, June 11, 2009 8:16 PM
From: a friend
To: me

So, pretty exciting day here.

I bought a toaster.

I don't think I've ever owned a toaster before.

I brought it home, set it up, and realised ... you need bread for a toaster.

So I went out again and bought some bread.

You'd be proud of the toaster though. I went the practical option - chrome finish so if ever anyone tries to sneak up behind me in the kitchen I can grab the toaster and smack them over the head before they get to me.

Yep. I think I'll enjoy owning a toaster.

a friend

Naughty Computer Games

The Australian government is attempting to introduce an internet censorship ostensible to “protect the children” from the bogeyman of child pornography. As I previously wrote here :

• The scheme will use a blacklist of web sites that every internet company will be forced to use.
• This blacklist will be decided by the government.
• This blacklist has been 'protected' by Freedom of Information laws (FoI) so that ordinary Australians will not know which websites have been banned, and therefore will have no recourse to protest the banning of certain websites

One thing I had not emphasized is that that there will be no oversight of this scheme. Whatever the government decides should be censored from Australians will be banned. No recourse, no protest, no take backs, do not pass Go. Do Not collect $200. Given the exemption from FoI laws, Australians will not even know “what” sites have been banned.

As with pretty much every government scheme with no oversight and a faulty mandate, mission creep is inevitable. So from The Age (June 25), we now have an example of how this scheme will evolve:

“The Federal Government has now set its sights on gamers, promising to use its internet censorship regime to block websites hosting and selling video games that are not suitable for 15 year olds.”

From the article, because Australia’s current censorship scheme does not have an R18+ rating for computer games, any games with ‘unacceptable’ content are simply banned and you can’t buy them. Blanket banning game downloads or online games seems to be overstepping the bounds of stopping child pornography, and kind of smacks of ‘ideological convenience’ or a quick fix to something that really wasn’t a problem to begin with.

Box graphics from a computer game Hilary Clinton had an issue with

I’m not arguing that there are not games that do not have content that is offensive or disgusting (as a recent title from Japan demonstrates) however I don’t believe this falls under the mandate of this scheme. From the Australian Government’s own website:

“The Government's election commitment was that filtering would block content using a blacklist of prohibited sites maintained by the This link sends you off DBCDE's websiteAustralian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in accordance with legislation. The ACMA blacklist is a list of internet web sites, predominantly comprising images of the sexual abuse of children, which are defined as 'prohibited' under Australian legislation which has been in place since 2000.”

I’m not sure why computer games that do not have violent, degrading or illegual sexual imagery are banned, such as "Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure", which if Wikipedia is to be believed was “Banned [in Australia] because of high impact violence and the glorification of graffiti”

I totally understand how the “glorification of graffiti” can, in its’ own way destroy society, however there is a fairly strong argument that this could be overstepping the bounds of what is deemed unacceptable and censorship-worthy. Also, from this 2006 article, it is clear that ACMA, has wanted expanded powers to ban and censor online content for all Australians for a little while:

If prohibited material is hosted in Australia, ACMA can issue take-down notices or inform relevant law enforcement agencies to take action but its powers dramatically wane when faced with overseas hosting, as is the case with Postal.

"With overseas hosting, ACMA can refer the content from the downloadable source to manufacturers of content filters so ISPs can block the offending URLs," Barnard said."

In 2006, ACMA did not have those powers. If the Australian government successfully implements their internet content filtering scheme, they will have them.

Today, it’s the “glorification of graffiti”, tomorrow “climate change denial”?

Links:

GTA "Hot Coffee" link (warning: badly rendered polygons made to look like two people having sex): http://www.spike.com/video/hot-coffee/2673401

More videogame sex scenes: http://www.ugo.com/lifestyle/best-video-game-sex-scenes/

Genesis v2.0

The best video you will see this Friday....

"Go forth and multiply yourselves....but not in those words"
(via Metafilter I think)

Life imitating art?

el Pollo - meanest vigilante gringo in all of Argentina

An employee of a chicken shop, wearing a chicken suit, foiled a wannabe car thief (I think). From this article (via Metafilter)

"Un empleado de la pollería de Lavalle y Soler que hace promoción en la puerta del comercio disfrazado de pollo atrapó a Luis Alberto Armani (de 20 años), quien minutos antes habría intentado robar un auto."

Or in badly translated English

"An employee of pollería of Lavalle and Soler that makes promotion in the door of the disguised commerce of chicken catched Luis Alberto Armani (of 20 years), who minutes before would have tried to rob a car."

For those who haven't yet seen the glaringly obvious pop-culture reference...here it is:



And the sequel, Chicken Fight Two

And the next sequel, Chicken Fight Three

The most powerful man on Earth kills a fly...and PETA complain

Regarding this:


is enough for these guys to complain. I have my own problems with the One, but his killing a fly on live TV doesn't even rate. Just goes to show that no matter what you do, someone is going to take offence.

A "humane bug catcher" like the one PETA sent Obama
(picture source)

A giant &@#%ing bird eating spider eating a bird, native of Queensland,
for which PETA's "humane bug catcher" probably wouldn't work.
(picture source)

Girls on Film

OMG, who gives a crap?!?! This ‘open letter’ to Pixar (one of the world’s best animation studios) is from a fan who complains that in the last 10 movies, not one had a lead female heroine (they were apparently all support characters)

A Pixar non-Princess female character

Soooo inane…And what does that say about me, commenting on the inane!?!? Why the gibbons do people these days think they can dictate artists/creatives/production companies ideas to match their “diversity” agendas?

From here:

“So I'm not complaining; I'm asking. I'm asking because I think so highly of you.

Please make a movie about a girl who is not a princess.”

Another Pixar non-Princess female character

Dear Mr Dali, can you please show more representation of digital clocks? All you paintings appear to favour analog clocks, and coming from someone who can’t read those clockfaces, I feel that your work is prejudiced and not representative enough of my digital generation. Please make a painting about a clock that isn’t analog.

---

Dear Mozart, Could you please please please, start using the 3^rd harmonic starting at D#. I find that a lot of your music is in a jaunty major key that clearly biases G major, and there are those of us that really want to listen to depressing D# minor. Please make a musical piece about D# minor that is not about G major.

---

Dear Mr Van Gogh, can you stop doing !@#ing daisies and you know, focus a bit on hydrangeas? Please make a painting about hydrangeas that aren’t daisies.

Only 2 female characters in a family of five, demonstrating
a total ignorance of appropriate diversity quotas.

Dear Mr Hitchcock, please make a movie about a girl that isn’t killed by a psycho.

---

Dear Mr Ford Coppola, please make a movie about the Vietnam war that doesn’t end badly…like the war did

---

Dear Mr DeNiro, please make a movie about a gangster who isn’t fat.

---

Dear Mr Spielberg, please make a movie about an Extraterrestrial that isn’t cute.

I could seriously keep going…..

Cybermob Justice

(picture source)

Fascinating article about "human flesh search engine". No this is not about porn (sorry Gramps) but about "digital lynch mobs". The major story in the article was about the "Kitten Killer of Hangzhou", where a chinese woman videos herself torturing and killing a kitten in the most stomach churning way, and then posts the video to a chinese version of YouTube. The torch and pitchfork carrying villagers (in this case played by the cyber-citizens of China) are so revolted by the act that they:

"were able to discover her location by analyzing the background of the video. Then they matched the shoes worn in the video to an online purchase. With this information they uncovered her identity and address. These details were posted online and she was attacked with thousands of phone calls and threats. She was mercilessly shamed, lost her job, and was forced to post a video apology online where she acknowledged her actions and asked for forgiveness."

Justice is served? Well that's an interesting concept. The comments on the blog where I came upon this story were varyingly retributively approving:

"The internet-justice connection is also about making information easily accessible to the public. And sometimes the public know what the police don't.
... "

or fearfully insightful:

"I also have a very bad feeling about this. If it is ok for kitten killers then it will be ok for whatever topic X society doesn't like as long as there is enough of society to make an impact in their personal lives."

I suspect that whilst the idea of collective 'justice' is not just a Chinese phenomenon, and this particular narrative has equivalents in every country that has the internet, lynchmobs are probably not the best way forward. However it does raise the question of exactly what can individuals or groups do when the justice system breaks down?

The mob quest for justice can have unintended consequences: In the US in 2008, Lori Drew was convicted of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act because she had intentionally created a fake MySpace profile with which to taunt her neighbours daughter which resulted in her suicide. The case got a huge amount of publicity, and in a statement that the father of the victim read to the court:

"“I am no longer married to Megan’s mom,” he said, halting to catch his emotions. “We are both financially ruined, and I have gone through a living hell.
...
Ron Meier disclosed that after news about Drew’s role in the cyberbullying went public and the Drews received death threats, he had been advised by authorities to maintain a daily log of his activities and make sure that he was never alone, because if something happened to Lori Drew or her family, he was told, he would be the first suspect."

So whilst the actions of Lori were ethically and morally reprehensible
a: the laws of the land had not caught up the crime (which is why she was convicted of Computer Fraud, being the only law available to prosecutors due to the uniqueness of crime) and
b: cybermob-justice had unintentionally made life more difficult for the victim's father.

An "eye for an eye" speaks to a deep seated human desire to see evil punished. Society in liberal democracies has a range of checks and balances that supposedly weighs the rights of the individual relative to the State. The legal system prevents lynchmobs taking the law into their own hands and providing their own brand of justice. The internet promises unrestricted (and anonymous) freedom of speech which includes the ability of anyone to post personal details of alleged perpetrators without any oversight. Should there be?

Newspapers and the broadcast media have laws governing what they can and can't write about and broadcast. The internet provides a media and publishing outlet to individuals, which the vast majority include personal rantings and ravings (including this particular blog). Should it be regulated? Is it possible?

WTF?

A japanese computer game trailer.

Probable target demographic: Large muscle-bound homosexual gym junkies who like dressing up like rabbits...or something.