This morning, Dad and I drove to a secluded carpark in Darebin. I receieved my first driving lesson from him, in our Volvo 240 automatic (”Red Gert”, we call her). The other car is a Toyota Landcruiser GL [4WD] (”The Truck”, coined by my late grandfather) and I wasn’t confident to tackle said beast from the outset (it’s a manual). Old is a reoccurring theme in the cars and also my parents.

We started with the most difficult thing — parking. I tried all the different variations: parallel, angular, perpendicular and reversing in and out. The difficult thing is getting a feel for the car, and then achieving good control and thus being smooth in the execution of actions. In my opinion, I still have a long way to go!

I must say, while the Volvo had no power steering, and because of this it was a battle to turn the wheel all the way around, it had a fantastic turning circle (I could easily chuck a U-turn in a relatively narrow space). One can feel the road under the steering wheel, especially at lower speeds. (Dad said it was because of the relativey high pressure in the tires).

Now I wonder how long it will take for me to get at least 120 hours practice, given the hour or so today.

Darkzone Shenanigans

Last night, I was invited to DarkZone Box Hill, an offer I could not decline! While we all only played 2 games, they were great fun. “Big Bird” (aka: Yours truly) won the first game (a standard deathmatch) overall. For the second game, a team match, I came second overall (as did my team). I am convinced the overall winning player cheated, because their score was over double my own (which was around that of the first game, which in turn was double that of person who came 2nd). Either that, or they were pretty good!

Afterwards, a subset of those who went to DarkZone had dinner. We all went to “The Booth”, a Taiwanese resturant, just around the corner from DarkZone. I had a delicious beef wrap, which contained slivers of tender marinated beef wrapped in some sort of egg pastry containing spring onions and (I think) chives. Yum. And it only cost $7, which was good value considering it was a generous serving (and tasted great). Just watch out for the ‘Milk Tea’ (ie: Bubblecup style) as it reportedly tasted strange.

Never underestimate the mind of a child

No really. Children aren’t stupid. One of the little whippersnappers who ate with us (I was actually the only legal adult in the group, a humbling thought!) asked for my name. Within about a minute, she had guessed my other nickname. Said nickname is not usually guessed by older people. Scary, no? Perhaps just a different perspective on things?

Small Rant

Coming home on the train (I seem to get about by myself these days), I witnessed some unparalleled acts of antisocial idiocy by some moronic teenager. While I had my book to amuse me, this fellow roused my ire — I genuinely wished to punch his face in (no shit). But I refrained.

On Wednesday afternoon, I saw the Al Gore environmental lecture/documentry/movie, An Inconvenient Truth.

It was very well done, and presented a compelling argument. Ironically, being Wesgarth Cinema, most of the audience was pretty much convinced anyway (Northcote is a funky suburb). What the movie did for me, was not so much teach me anything new, but serve as nice summation of the situation.

On a more cynical note, the film seemed to be a product placement excercise for Apple. There were hundreds of shots of Gore’s very sexy powerbook (the laptop, not the politician) and of him using Keynote (Apple’s competitor to MS Powerpoint).

Still, despite this slightly sour taste of marketing, Gore demonstrated how to give an excellent presentation. He was not boring, and injected elements of humour and even a few touching personal anecdotes (which I found suprising, but he got away with it without sounding like a wanker). It is my belief that Powerpoint is generally used terribly, and most people do not know how to give a proper presentation. Those people, I urge to take example from Gore: engage the audience and only display major points and useful aids, with a minumum of fuss (ie: no irritating sounds, over-the-top slide transitions, etc). Gore’s moderate tone lends to his rational argument, unfortunately something which many passionate individuals (in any arena) forget.

The film was quite long — over 2 and a half hours. Despite that, It kept me absorbed (but not my immature brother, though). I would recommend this film to anyone, and urge that pundits watch it as well.

See climatecrisis.net for more details.

In a fortiutous moment, I managed to procure some decent hosting!

As such, Coffee Plunger has been moved to wordpress and the rest of the other content will soon follow.

Yay!

I haven’t done a “personal” post in a while, because there hasn’t been much to report. However, some interesting things have happened recently (or will happen). In chronological order:

• A new release of C-Dogs SDL. This caused a pleasing spike in traffic from ~20 visits a day, to ~300 visits. I expect things shall return to normal levels once it drops off the front pages of freshmeat and happypenguin.
• I got a call from the GAP Project Manager for China. Things seem to be playing out well, and I’m looking forward to February next year, because there will be no more school, and 5 life-changing months to look forward to! Apparantly it’s also possible to do 2 placements in a year, which is also interesting…
• This Thursday night (August 24), Melbourne High and Macrob will be having a Winter Music Concert, commencing at 7:30 at the Dallas Brookes Hall, East Melbourne. I’m in the Borodin Orchestra, Symphony Orechesta, Symphonic Band, Brass Ensemble and Stage Band!
• This Saturday Night (August 26), MLC will be holiding a Jazz Cabaret, commencing at 7:30 in the Betty Jackson Hall MLC, Kew. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for students, and $50 for a family. It will be featuring the Show Band, MLC Stage Band, Random Jazz Groups and the MHS Stage Band. It’s going to be a wonderfull evening!

Anyone short of fanatical tends to agree that fundamentalism, often with the resulting extremism, is dangerous in any form.

Fundamentalism is a threat to any society, because its divisive nature breeds intolerance and even fuels (often violent) hostility towards non-conformists. Clearly such things are not healthy (especially in the non-homogeneous societies that are pre-eminent today), and do little to promote harmony between people.

Why do people turn to fundamentalism? Fundamentalism is the simplest interpretation of an idea. It is easy to grasp by anyone, since taking things literally requires little in the way of mental effort. Fundamentalism offers a degree of supposed “stability” in a seemingly crazed world. People find it hard to accept change, let alone adapt to it. Fundamentalism offers comfort in the company of like-minded people. Never mind that they are proverbial dinosaurs.

Like many social phenomena, fundamentalism is self-perpetuating. It is passed on from parents to children (who are infinitely malleable) and so on and so forth. Additionally, when there is fundamentalism, there is a suppression of introspection and critical thought. Ultimately, fundamentalists are incapable of questioning their world-view because it is deeply ingrained and because of their conscious will not to.

What is shocking is the fact that many people who are from an educated background, (who one may presume to have a degree of healthy scepticism regarding various interpretations and viewpoints, especially the more radical ones) are often keen fundamentalists.

For example, the rise of the “Family First” political party in Australian politics is a demonstration of worrying elements present in a fairly stable society, as most of it’s supporters hail from the middle (and thus supposedly higher-educated) classes. From this, it could be said that fundamentalism is independent from socio-economic background and education.

Where things begin to fall apart is that fundamentalist interpretation is still, after all, an interpretation. Language is constantly evolving: meaning, spelling and usage of words change over time.

There is a somewhat sad irony regarding the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, for instance. The original tomes were written in many different languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, and Ancient Greek. They were subsequently translated into Latin, and then into English for wider consumption (though some modern translations derive from the “original” sources). However, it is not surprising of the possibility of things being “lost in translation”, despite the rigorous efforts of translators and theologians. At the end of the day, fundamentalists are relying on the words of men.

Part II of this essay will be continued in a future post.