Fake Speech

I was expecting the Republican convention to be full of jingoistic cheerleading and empty platitudes, and was surprised by the four day buffet of fear and loathing I got instead. With the Democratic convention, I finally got what I was expecting, and—holy shit—it was dull. Not only dull, but with only a few exceptions—Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Reverend Evangelical-black-church-fella-whose-name-i-can't-remember—the whole fuckin' thing felt robotic, insincere, and over-produced.

Bill Clinton's speech was waffling nonsense, Obama sounded like he was on autopilot, and the closing duo of Chelsea & Hillary was the worst of the worst.

Pretty much the only thing that kept proceedings interesting was the steaming hatred coming from the Bernie supporters—many of whom protested, many of whom broke out in subversive chants, and many of whom will probably end up voting Green.

I tell you what; if these jokers are going to run their whole campaign on the back of this beige, uninspiring rhetoric, Trump is going to win this fuckin' election.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

La-La-Laa-La

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38510785

SBS is replaying Daria. If you don't know, it's a cartoon that came out … um … probably in the mid '90s? I dunno why I got into it back then—obviously I was far too old to be in the target demographic. I might have been living somewhere where I only got the ABC—I don't remember—shit, the mid '90s was 20 fucking years ago already—Jesus Christ.

Anyway, I remember it coming on the ABC in the afternoons, either one or two spots before the evening news. It's about the day-to-day life of an American high-school girl whose intelligence & insight have rendered her perpetually cynical and morose.

Unfortunately, these episodes seem a bit anemic compared to when they originally aired. See, apparently MTV never licensed any music specifically for their shows; instead, they just used whatever music they had licensed to play on their channel at the time. As those licenses have long since expired, the only music you get on the show now is the opening/closing theme and some very bland and very sparse incidental music. It may not sound like a big difference, but it's amazing how much something like that changes the atmosphere. It's a problem that affects the DVD version as well.

Another thing I've noticed on repeat viewing is that Daria's kind of a bitch. On top of her somewhat Machiavellian approach to life, she's often condescending, vindictive, and mean-spirited—which isn't necessarily a bad thing—not every protagonist needs to be a morally upright hero—but I can't help wondering if the show doesn't portray her as such a little bit more than it should.

If you've seen the show, let me know what you think; if not, you can check it out over at SBS On Demand. I don't know how many more episodes I'm going to watch, but it's definitely staying on the "record" list.

Hate Speech × 1,000,000

I've spent the last 4 days listening to the Republican National Convention. I'm going to link to the full & unaltered versions; however, I do NOT recommend trying to watch or listen to them. The live streams that I listened to included bitingly sarcastic commentary, and it was still a collection of the most soul-crushing political speeches I've ever been subjected to.

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4

I've never tuned in to an American political convention before, so I don't really have anything to compare this to. I was expecting a lot of bombastic, high-energy, jingoistic, rebel-rousing, and ultimately empty rhetoric about how great Yankland is and how much greater it's going to be with less regulation and lower taxes—and yeah, there was a bit of that—but for the most part, this was a purposefully crafted orgy of human misery.

The speakers came in approximately four different flavours:

1. Trump's friends and family. These were all pretty much puff-pieces about how great Trump is as a husband/father/friend/employer. And while his kids have all obviously had experience giving speeches, his wife came off as a little bit "meh", and two of his mates gave weird rambling character references that didn't go anywhere and just sort of petered out without ever making a point.
2. D-list celebrities—basically, reality TV people, soap-stars, & has-beens—although they did somehow manage to swing a female astronaut. These were also generally pretty light and fluffy; however, there was one right-wing talk-show host—Laura Ingraham—who gave what might have been the most rousing and inspiring speech of the whole shebang.
3. Republican politicians, such as governors, mayors, & senators. A couple of these were all, "Rah, rah, USA", but for the most part, this is where things started getting dark. One after another, they took turns hammering the crowd on the terrifying twin threats of Mexicans & Muslims—and the one thing that will open the door to both—Hillary Clinton. They talked about how they were coming to spread drugs and violence; to rape the women and murder both the cops & the gays; about how they were planning to detonate nuclear bombs in the cities; and about how the traitor Hillary would welcome them with open arms. Writing it, it sounds like fanciful, far-fetched exaggeration, but it's all there if you want to try and listen to it. Time and again the cry went up, "We cannot hope to defeat our enemy if we lack the courage to even call it by its name; and the enemy's name is radical Islam". The New Jersey governor turned his speech into a mock trial for Clinton, having the crowd shout "Guilty! Guilty!" as he read a list of her crimes. At various times throughout the conference, speakers—including Trump—led a chant of "Lock her up! Lock her up!"
4. Oh, and this is where things got really dark. They also had a number of "regular people" speak—almost all of which were war veterans or people who blamed Hillary for the deaths of their children. A couple of these were literally nonsense; by which I mean, sentences that didn't seem to fit together coherently. Stuff that sounded like "Our enemy is at the gate. Like our forefathers before us, we need to stand strong. In our conviction for justice. We need to take that stand and strike a blow for the freedom that we as Americans cherish so dearly. That our fathers and their fathers taught us to stand for. This is the test that God has put before us, and we cannot shrink from it. Because God is with us." If you've ever heard Sarah Palin speak, you'll know what I mean. But it was the speeches that did make sense that were the most disturbing. A couple of people gave horrifying accounts of how their children were murdered by illegal immigrants, including graphic descriptions of the bullet-ridden bodies. A couple of blokes gave a blow-by-blow account of how a military operation in Libya went bad because of decisions made by Hillary in her role as Secretary Of State. One woman, who sounded like she'd come directly from her son's funeral, sobbed and wailed about putting Clinton behind bars. Throughout most of this, the crowd mumbled uncomfortably, unaware of whether they should cheer or boo or simply stay silent.

Y'know, I complained about Turnbull's speech at the last election being a long angry ramble, but having watched this, I now understand how fortunate we are in this country. The pinnacle of this whole event was Trump shouting—yes, literally shouting—about terrorists and dead children and locking up Hillary, for a little over an hour.

I saw two instances of "indy journalists" almost coming to blows; in one case, the confrontation was between a left-winger and a right-winger, and in the other case, it was two left-wingers arguing over whether it was morally defensible for lefties to vote for a third party candidate, like The Greens, if that means Trump might win. Oh, and by the way, both sides are now openly accusing each other of rape—apparently one of Trump's ex-wives made allegations years ago—and there's all the rumours about Bill Clinton and some of his sleazy millionaire mates—I even saw a t-shirt that had Bill's face and the word "RAPE" on the front.

If this is just the beginning—if things are only going to get worse from here on out—then this is going to be one ugly fucking campaign. Democratic convention is next week. Dunno if it's gonna be any classier. Dunno if I have the will to find out.

Is anybody going to see the new Ghostbusters flick?

I'm not going to pay $20 to go and see it, but I am curious, mostly because I've heard so bloody much about it in the last couple of days; everything from it being the best comedy in years to it being a giant pile of shit.

Here are some of the criticisms that I thought were the most concerning from my point of view:

The Comedy

I feel like this is a near-perfect vocalisation of why I hate modern comedy.

The Action

Is it possible to have a female character that kicks arse, without showing them literally kicking someone's arse?

The Summary

I'm tempted to link to all five million of the discussion videos I found on Youtube; but instead, I'll just give examples of either end of the spectrum and one video that attempts to deconstruct the hype.

Looking forward to seeing what youse mob have to say about this, if anything.

Hate Speech

The way other people use the English language annoys all of us, doesn't it? Here's a few thing's I've noticed bothering me lately.

Racism

Can we not stop using the term racism as a catch all when discussing issues as diverse as culture, nationality, and religion? We already have perfectly serviceable non-specific terms, like bigotry, discrimination, and prejudice, so why not use them?

Feminism

When the fuck did feminism come to be defined as hatred and discrimination toward men? Where the fuck did misandry get to? Come back misandry, your services are required!

Homophobia

The term phobia usually implies that someone has an irrational fear of something—a pathological condition that requires understanding and treatment rather than rejection and ridicule. Now, I understand that there are some people who genuinely feel threatened and/or uncomfortable around homosexuals, and in these cases, I would say that homophobia is indeed the word you want to use; but most of the time, what we're talking about is people with hateful or discriminatory points of view. To draw a parallel, when we talk about people who are uncontrollably afraid of men, we use the word androphobia, but when we talk about people who think men should be treated as lesser beings, we use the term misandry (or feminism, apparently). Now, that's not to say that those two things don't go hand in hand, but at least we have two separate terms with unique and (reasonably) unambiguous meanings that allow us to be clear on exactly what it is we're talking about. So, can we not come up with a better term for discrimination against gays? And if we can't, can we not just call people with those beliefs bigots? … or maybe just cunts?

As an extra annoyance, it seems like people these days are tacking the phobia suffix onto every form of discrimination they possibly can: biphobia, transphobia, islamophobia, atheophobia (I shit you not). … Come to think of it though, islmophobia might actually be appropriate in a lot of cases, considering how much of the discrimination that Muslims cop seems to be rooted in genuine (if misguided) fear; but come on, are people seriously afraid of atheists?

Turkey

UPDATE

It seems the coup has failed. Erdoğan is already talking about "cleansing" the military, and the high price that will need to be paid. I guess this makes most of this post irrelevant, but I'll leave it up for comment anyway. Let's see how things develop from here.

Very worried about the news coming out of Turkey this morning. But why, you may ask? Isn't this par for the course over there? Don't they have a long history of the military stepping in to set things right every time the government runs off the rails? Well, okay; let's set aside the loss of life and the inherent issues in having "military coup" as an accepted political mechanism in a democratic country—and let's look at this case in particular.

Here's what I'm hearing: This isn't a typical Turkish military uprising. This is an uprising by one faction within military. The police, as well as a large portion of the military has remained loyal to Erdoğan. There is also a substantial portion of the military that hasn't picked a side yet. If this is true, there are three potentially likely outcomes:

Protracted civil war:

On top of the wholesale death & destruction you see in any war, here's what else you can expect:

1. The Syrian/Iraqi conflict spilling over into Turkey, possibly turning the entire region into one giant clusterfuck.
2. The Kurds declaring themselves a separate state.
3. A giant humanitarian crisis. If you thought the waves of refugees coming into Europe from Syria were overwhelming, batten down the hatches.

Erdoğan Wins:

He gaols and/or executes everybody who ever looked at him funny, shuts down the media, and cements himself as theocratic dictator for life. Goodbye secular democracy in Turkey.

Erdoğan Loses:

On the face of it, this seems like the best possible outcome, and it probably is, but I think there's hidden dangers here too.

You may have heard Erdoğan saying things like, "Turkey will not be ruled from Pennsylvania". This is a reference to Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish religious leader living in exile in America, who is believed to have been working with parts of the US government to undermine Erdoğan's authority for a while now.

So, why would the Yanks have an interest in getting rid of Erdoğan? Well, there's pretty clear evidence that Turkey has been attacking US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, as well as—possibly—supplying so-called ISIS factions who are fighting against the Kurds. There's also been talk that Erdoğan has been using Syrian refugees as a loaded-gun in a heavy-handed attempt to extort money from the EU.

If this uprising is being led by Gülen sympathisers, you can bet there'll be a concerted effort to install one of their own into power—probably through "democratic" elections. The problem is, the Gülen movement may not be that much better. There's a good chance they'd just be replacing an "isolated" authoritarian theocrat with an authoritarian theocrat "friendly" towards America & the EU.

Good luck Turkey. I hope I'm wrong and this whole mess works out well for you.

ASMRoleplay

Whilst doing research for my upcoming (eventually) post on the weird and wonderful world of ASMR, I discovered what must be the greatest "girlfriend roleplay" ever recorded.

For obvious reasons, I have little personal interest in girlfriend roleplays. Going by what I've seen so far, I can say they're only ~semi~common in the ASMR world; a lot of them are audio only—a bit like a one (wo)man radio play; and almost every single one I've listened to so far has been a complete ego-wank. The standard script goes something along the lines of:

Hey babe, can't you sleep? Here, let me give you a head massage.
…
No, no, you know how much I love giving massages.

*massaging sounds commence*

Listen babe, I know you're over worked and under appreciated, but I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate everything you do. You're such a strong person …

*kissing sounds*

but you're also gentle and kind and I just love you ever so much.

*etc, etc, etc*

This one takes a slightly different route. I recommend giving it a listen, even if you don't like ASMR. At least until around the 11min mark.

Highlights:

02:29	Yeah, yeah, I love you too. Good night.
03:04	No, I'm not playing video games with you right now.
03:46	Okay, those buttons are too fucking loud, I'm sorry.
04:15	Turn it down. … Look, this is how tired I am. I know you can't turn down buttons. Can you do something else?
06:20	I have problems too, okay; and I need to get some sleep or else I'm going to be really fucking grumpy. You know me when I'm grumpy, so you don't wanna deal with that.
08:35	You're seriously going to eat peanuts in bed? No, put the fucking peanuts away. No, I'm not a frigging peanut. You know we have a whole nother room. It'd be perfectly fine if you went out there.

I fuckin' love the line, "No, I'm not a frigging peanut". I can just imagine it coming in response to, "You're a bloody peanut. 'ay? Aren'tcha?"

Hm, I guess sometimes it's just nice to be reminded of the things you don't have to put up with when you're single.

Things Bored People Say

You know those people who stand in shopping centres and harass passers by into signing up to World Vision and Doctors Without Borders? You know how 90% of them have foreign accents because nobody except backpackers will do a job that shitty? I imagine it gets pretty tedious, spending all day trying to engage with strangers who just want you to fuck off and leave them alone. I imagine that eventually you start trying all sorts of weird shit to get their attention.

As I was coming out of Woolies the other day, a young lass strolled up to me and said, in the broadest Irish accent you've ever heard:

"You look like a farmer."

My first thought was to respond with, "And you sound like a leprechaun". But instead, I opted for the much wittier, "Ah … um, thanks … but look, I'm not interested."

I give her an A for originality. That and seven bucks'll buy ya a watered down coke at the picture theatre.

The Troll Queen's Treasure Hoard

How can you tell when your behaviour constitutes hoarding?

When I was younger, I collected comics; as soon as I had television, I started recording movies, and built up quite a film collection; and then later, I got into DVDs. These days, I live in a tiny dwelling, and try not to hang onto anything that takes up physical space. In fact, if you came to my place and looked around, you'd probably say I lived a fairly austere lifestyle. You certainly wouldn't see any evidence of hoarding. … Except maybe for a set of shelves that're gradually filling up with hard-drives.

I save everything in digital form. I haven't intentionally deleted an email in decades (there have been accidents); I scan everything I get in the post, every bill, every bank statement; I've got decent sized comic book and music collections; I have a huge library of reference pictures that I (used to) use for sketching; I've even gone so far as to download entire websites if I thought the information on them was interesting enough. But of course, it's the videos that take up the most space …

Currently, I'm recording over 100hrs of television a month. Mostly SBS movies and documentaries. Sometimes I listen to some of the docos while doing other things, but I rarely watch any of it. I've written a little application that names and sorts it all, and adds details to a library database. Then it sits on a set of mirrored external hard-drives (you need to have back-ups) until the hard-drives are full. Then the hard-drives go on the shelf, and new hard-drives take their place. And it's not just stuff I've recorded off telly. Pretty much everything I see on Youtube that takes my fancy gets downloaded and filed away too. And there's a good portion of that which I haven't got around to watching either. On top of that, I've also got a bunch of stuff that other people have given me. Some of you might be aware that I've been meaning to watch Breaking Bad for years, but never got around to it.

So, what's going on? Well, I could just say that I've been too busy; but I think the truth is, for some reason, I just don't have the patience for watching videos right now. I'm energised, I want to be doing something with my hands—typing, sketching, working out—but not just sitting passively and watching a screen. Now, I don't want to say that I NEVER get ANY enjoyment from watching videos these days, just not in the same quantities or manner that I used to. For instance, I'm really liking Game Of Thrones & Orange Is The New Black, but I honestly don't think I could get through most of the episodes in one sitting if I wasn't taking notes. Somehow, it's the note-taking that makes the experience fun. Which probably explains why I failed so spectacularly, when I tried to go back and re-watch old GoT episodes.

So, why keep all these videos if I'm not watching them? Well, lately I've been re-reading a bunch of old comics that I have saved on one of those hard-drives that's sitting on the shelf—and I've been really, really enjoying them. Okay, at this point you may well ask why it is that I can sit still long enough to read a comic when I can't sit still long enough to watch a movie. I don't know. Maybe it's because comics are shorter and easier to put down and pick up again, but I also think I feel more engaged when I'm reading and scrolling, as opposed to just sitting and staring. The point is, the comics represent something that I packed away for safe keeping years ago, and now I'm incredibly glad that I did. Likewise, I also used to really enjoy watching videos, and maybe someday I'll be incredibly glad I have a huge library of stuff saved away to watch.

The question is, how do you know when you've gone too far?

404 Democracy

The longer it takes for the AEC to count the ballots from last weekend's election, the more likely it is you're going to hear people suggesting we move to electronic/online voting. This article from ABC Online quotes Professor David Glance from the University of Western Australia as saying:

"The technology is being used in banking and financial systems and in fact there is an entire security system that is being built on this technology that verifies our security certificates as we surf the web."

I've never met David Glance, but I can only assume from this article that he is either:

1. Taken horribly out of context.
2. Expecting to find work as a consultant if such a system is implemented.
3. A dickhead.

I'm willing to bet that the amount of money stolen from banks has only gone up since the days when you needed a shotgun and a getaway car. I don't know what the old figures were, but these days, online financial fraud is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Hey, remember a couple of years ago, when some cunt hacked into Target and stole 40 million credit card numbers in one go? Oh, and the trusted-certificate model he talks about—the one that we rely on to verify the identity of websites we connect to—is completely busted. There's been several high-profile cases in the last couple of years of certificate-authorities knowingly or unknowingly issuing fraudulent certificates—as well as device manufacturers intentionally breaking the system so they could inject their own ads into web pages (If you've bought a laptop in the last 3 years, this may affect you). There's also been several cases in which the software most commonly used to make these connections was compromised due to simple coding errors. Does anyone remember the name "HeartBleed". Okay, maybe they don't, but what about last year, when the US office of personnel management got hacked into and sensitive info on 20 million Americans got knicked? You can't have missed that one. I find it disturbing that NONE of this gets mentioned in the article. Thankfully there is some push-back from Vanessa Teague of Melbourne Uni:

Vanessa Teague, senior lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at The University of Melbourne, helped find a flaw in the system at the election last year.

"In the 2011 election, there was a software bug that mis-recorded a small fraction of the vote."

"In 2015 we found a serious security hole."

"We showed it was possible, using a practised version of the iVote system, to expose how the person wanted to vote and change their vote before it went back into the Electoral Commission."

"About 66,000 votes were cast over iVote before the problem was fixed. We really don't have any evidence either way in whether that problem was exploited, manipulated real votes or not."

"And that's really the summary of the issue - with internet voting it's not just that it might be insecure or it might be wrong; it's the issue that it's really hard to demonstrate that evidence trail that voters and scrutineers can see to make sure that they got the answer right."

"It's not that our paper base process is perfect, it's that the opportunity for a very small number of people to manipulate a very large number of votes is pretty limited when the paper evidence still has to be carted around."

Thanks Ness; if I may: There's two giant problems here:

1. At the moment, polling takes place in a lot of different locations at the same time, and there's a lot of eyes present. If you wanna rig election results, it takes a fantastic amount of planning, timing, access, resources, coordination, manpower, and luck. Conversely, if you move to an online system, there's one central target you have to attack; you can attack it from anywhere; and you get to hammer on it over and over again, as much as you want, and you only have to find one security hole once to win the game. Suddenly, it's conceivable that some lone cunt in another country could throw an election without even getting out of bed.


2. With paper ballots, there's a hundred different people who can look at one and see if there's been a printing error or some other cock up. With a computer system, how many people are going to be able to look at the hardware/software and tell whether everything's working exactly as it should be? Whether it's a backdoor that's been slipped into the firmware on some Chinese assembly line or just some coder who's forgotten to close a bracket somewhere. Who the fuck's ever going to know?

Look, I interact with computers in one way or another pretty much all day every day. I think they're fantastic tools that make many many tasks much much easier. However, I don't overestimate what they can do, and I don't get moist at the thought of having some cheap, shitty, non-repairable, non-replaceable circuit-board in my washing machine, or exposing my air-conditioner to the internet so that every cunt on Shodan can find it. Put simply, I don't subscribe to the notion that EVERYTHING can be improved by shoving more and more fucking technology into it. Voting is at the top of list of things that should be left the fuck alone.

Occupy, Sanders, Corbyn, Trump, Hanson, Brexit

They're all symptoms of the same affliction.

I mentioned before that I was beginning to get the shits up a little bit with other lefties who think that the rise of Trump in the US; the Brexit vote in the UK; and the huge swing towards Pauline Hanson here, are simply expressions of ignorant racism. Now, I don't want to argue that racism isn't playing a substantial part; I just don't think it's the whole story.

Twenty years ago, we were all held captive—at least, to a certain degree—by the traditional news media. It was difficult for an story to get legs if the papers and the telly chose to ignore it. Well, now everyone's on Facebook & Youtube; we've circumvented the traditional news media and we're actively talking amongst ourselves on a national/international scale. So, what conclusions have we reached?

Well, I think the conclusion that a lot of us have reached is that there are two groups of people—those who have money & power, and those who don't; and the group that does has rigged the social/political/economic/legal system in order to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. I think many things have fed into this: child abuse in the church; weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; Wikileaks; Snowden; the GFC; European austerity; stagnant wages; decreases in pensions; increases in politician's salaries; political expenses rorts; and every story involving police brutality or wrongful conviction of a poor person, or wealthy/connected person getting away with a slap on the wrist.

I think it's all coming together to feed a single overarching narrative of us vs them; and what's coming out of that is a generalised, unfocused revolt against authority. The guts of the story isn't about whether people are swinging left or swinging right, it's that people of all persuasions are trying to circumvent established power structures in the same way they circumvented established media structures; and in doing so, they're looking to "establishment outsiders" for leadership.

Now, I don't know if we're looking down the barrel of a full-scale revolution, or if this whole thing's going to fizzle out to a fart; but I do know that I've been getting frustrated by the fact that nobody else seemed to be joining the dots and seeing the same pattern I was. … And then, lo and behold, this week, 50% of the political podcasts I listen to are talking about it. … It's about time.

I've isolated the relevant part of the most interesting and colourful one. There's a few jokes in there that don't make sense if you haven't listened to the whole thing, but I don't think it's too much of an issue.

Crossing The Streams

You ever have two things you're into converge in a way you didn't expect?

Dunno if anyone remembers, but a while ago, I posted about how I'm using "ASMR" videos to help me get to sleep. Well, a couple of days ago, one of the "ASMRtists" I follow (and I shit you not, ASMRtist is an actual term people use) posted a video in which she talks about how much she loves '80s synth revival music. She talked about the Youtube channel she follows to discover new music (thank you very much) and her favourite song at the moment. She even played a bit of it.

Here is the relevant section of the ASMR video in question. I could have trimmed it down more, but I couldn't resist including the bit where she talks about her creaky bra. However, if you're more interested in the music, you can skip this video altogether …

Pro-tip: Don't turn the audio up too much to hear what she's saying, because the music comes through very loud when it starts.

This is "Running In The Night" by "FM-84", as featured on the NewRetroWave Youtube channel (thanks again).

At some point, I'm going to do a post about the weird rabbit hole I've gone down while looking into this whole ASMR video phenomenon. But not right now. No, right now I'm just hoping this girl incorporates more of this music into her future videos. It's a marriage made in heaven.

Election Oz! 2016!

This time around, the pollsters and pundits are telling us to keep an eye on South Aussie, where "Team Nick" looks like it might be a bit of an X-factor. Well, if they can rid us of Christopher Payne and Corey fuckin' Bernardi, then I say more power to the pricks.

Of special interest to me are Indi and New England, where I'm praying that a pair of independents can clobber a couple of capital C cunts. Also curious to see if the LNP in Kennedy have finally found a way to skin the cat in a hat—I hear he's only hangin' on by a whisker up there.

And don't forget, girls, this one's a "Double D"—which means the entire "upper house" is up for grabs. Ooooohhh. Will Malcolm's cunting plan pay off, or will it blow up spectacularly—right in his smug fuckin' face? Follow along in the comments to find out. Coverage starts as soon as I get my lazy arse out of bed.

… What? It's a Saturday in the middle of fuckin' Winter—gimme a fuckin' break.

RESULTS (Based on ABC projections & subject to change)

	TORY	LABOR	GREEN	OTHER
ACT		2			2
		1			2
NT		2			2
	1	1			2
NSW	23	24			47
	4	4			12
QLD	18	11		1	30
	4	3		1	12
SA	4	6		1	11
	4	3		2	12
TAS		4		1	5
	4	4	1	1	12
VIC	16	19	1	1	37
	4	4	1		12
WA	11	5			16
	4	3	1		12
AUS					150
					76

Breakdown of "OTHER"

HOUSE
Bob Katter	Katter's Australia Party	QLD
Rebekha Sharkie	Nick Xenophon Team	SA
Andrew Wilkie	Independent	TAS
Cathy McGowan	Independent	VIC
SENATE
Pauline Hanson	One Nation	QLD
Nick Xenophon	Nick Xenophon Team	SA
???	Nick Xenophon Team	SA
Jacqui Lambie	Jacqui Lambie Network	TAS

Educational Resources

Since I mentioned yesterday that programming is a good thing for young people to get into, I thought I might also post some links to resources for anyone who may actually want to follow my advice.

I know there's pre-programming games and stuff out there for little kids who aren't ready to write actual code yet, but I thought I'd skip over that and get right to the good stuff.

The obvious thing to do would be to direct people to Python Docs and suggest they start by learning Python—and indeed, that's not a bad option … I just don't know if it's the best option for people with zero starting knowledge. Instead, I'm going to buck convention and suggest they go over to W3Schools and start by learning regular old HTML. Now, I know HTML isn't a scripting language, but it is a nice, easy jumping-on point for people who aren't familiar with how executable code works. What's more, you don't need to install anything; you just write out a text file, and then open it with your web browser—how much simpler does it get? And of course, once you've got a grasp on HTML, you can move on to CSS, and then Javascript—which is a scripting language—and an increasingly popular one; and then SQL and PHP. All of the W3Schools' tutorials are straight-forward and easy to follow, with plenty of interactive examples. Also, considering how much of everything is done online these days, I think there's worse ideas than learning the languages that make the web work. It's not like you won't be able to learn some general-purpose scripting languages like Python, C, or Rust when you're finished.

As a bonus, I thought I'd also include some links for people who'd like to learn about how computer operating systems work in general.

The first link you'll need is to the VirtualBox Manual. This will show you how to set up a virtual-machine on your computer. If you don't know what a virtual-machine is—well, it's explained in the manual—but basically, it's like running a whole other computer within a window on your regular computer. You boot it up and install whatever operating system and programs you want on it, just like you would with a real computer. So, for instance, you could have a full Linux computer living inside a single window on your Microsoft Windows 7 desktop PC. However, unlike with a real computer, you can periodically "save" and backup your virtual-machine and then simply "undo" things if you happen to make a mess. Is that neat, or what?

The next question is, what operating system should you install on your virtual-machine? A lot of people would probably argue for their favourite flavour of Linux, but I disagree. While Linux-based operating systems are very popular and easy to use these days, I don't believe they're the best thing available for learning—partially because of how they're put together and partially because what documentation there is available tends to be rather shithouse. Instead, I would direct people to the FreeBSD Handbook. FreeBSD is a fantastically put together OS, with clear and well-written manual pages, and the handbook is probably the best and most thorough introduction to an operating system that I've ever come across. You could do a lot worse than starting here.

All of the links I've given in this post are to free/open-source resources. I hope they prove useful to anyone who's curious about using their computer for more than just Facebook, Youtube, and Minecraft. I know there must be at least one or two of you out there.