Super Moon

Last night, the moon was the closest it’s been to Earth in twenty years. Unfortunately, it was too cloudy (at least in Auckland skies) to appreciate. Because the lunar orbit is elliptical, it’s proximity to Earth varies, which account for a perceived 15% bigger, and around 30% brighter.

Anyway, this is just a precursor to the following moon-related question:

Q:     What causes the flow of the tides?

A:     God. Next question.

The foreshore and seabed bill is still being pushed through despite “overwhelming opposition” to it, according to this Phil Goff quote on Yahoo News. Questions over whether ordinary New Zealanders will be able to access the beaches upon which our tourism industry optimistically depends remain, as well as the question of if the bill does pass: how quickly will exclusive control of them be monetized for the gain of a few privileged individuals?

Kidding, it’s not a question. The answer is of course ‘immediately’.

The real question, however, is this: Why is the bill even being entertained? I mean, stand back and look at it objectively – could you imagine time and money being wasted on something so laughable in the US? Or say, China?

Note that China would not in fact entertain such an embarrassment. Instead, in the last quarter of 2010, they wasted time increasing their GDP by 9.8%, compared with NZ’s growth of 0.1%. In other words, relative to the size of each country, China outperformed New Zealand by ninety-eight times.

But back to the bill. Of course Maori national/cultural identity has to be protected, and yes, some historical injustices over which nobody who has been alive for at least 150 years had a modicum of influence or control have indeed occurred. But some things cannot be changed. The past happened. Furthermore, while we do know that some things in the past happened, we can’t even establish or agree upon what actually did occur. Let’s all just be New Zealanders, forget ridiculous and fruitless squabbling and focus on improving the here-and-now.

Personally, although both sides have equal consonance I’d say that on the whole, the lives of Maori have been immeasurably improved since the colonization of New Zealand by the Crown. Let us remember that Britain is in fact separate from France, and from Spain, all with separate monarchies, and that the last thing anyone wants to do is lump people together based upon their skin color, let alone assign culpability for historical grievances based on the same.

My opinion is not based on or dictated by my English extraction (again, something over which I had neither influence nor control) – it is the product of objective and rational thought, free from bias or prejudice. Although anyone even remotely familiar with New Zealand’s political discourse knows that rational thinking and objectivity have no place in the public forum.

I know what you’re thinking:

“What do you mean, my perspective of racial issues is relative to my race? What do you mean, the answer to complex issues is an equally complex derivative of “it depends”? Stop it! Stop making me see both sides!”

Honestly, it’s as bad as religion or this douche. Were we not fiddling about arguing over petty, ultimately inconsequential “issues” (if it’s reasonable to even dignify the whole foreshore/seabed clusterf**k with such a title), imagine what all that squandered time, money and effort could go toward. It’s like our own little pathetic dark ages, where reason and clear-headedness is shoved aside (or even deliberately stamped out) by culturally inherited, unconsidered hurf-durfery that has no consequence outside our own tiny corner of insignificance.

Macbook ‘Magsafe’ power adapters aren’t really

The ability to use my Macbook came to a speedy and pyrotechnic conclusion today when my 60w ‘magsafe’ power adapter reached what was obviously the end of it’s 11-month tether and burst into flames on my (also less than a year old) carpet. Clearly the “safe” is euphemistic, I just wish it said that on the box.

The magnetic adapter had been warm to the touch whenever I felt it and whatever outlet it was plugged into, but I always assumed some warmth was normal. The macbook is somehow unharmed, but the charger looks like this.

So called because if one were to trip on the cord, it would simply pop off the connection rather than drag to computer down with it. Two left feet they make provisions for; electrical fires, they do not. Handily, my house isn’t an inferno – but my new carpet has looked better.

The white outline is optimistically-applied carpet stain remover.

Black Eyed Peas release new single, forever ruin Dirty Dancing

And in entertainment news:

The Black Eyed Peas have irreparably destroyed yet another priceless cultural artefact – (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life, originally recorded by Bill Medley & Jennifer Warnes and made famous in Dirty Dancing. Adult Contemporary will never be the same.

“Sampling”, the guise under which songs (usually older, usually classics) are serially ripped off and undermined by the rap music industry, allows for legal freedom to use the intellectual property of other artists. It seems now that Swayze has gone the way of Jackson, Fawcett, and (hopefully) Derulo, any moral hesitance has gone as well. I mean, he won’t know, right?

Forget music piracy – this is arguably the most criminal attack on the entertainment industry: using the work, talent and reputation of others for one’s own “creative” ends after they’re dead and unable to defend their body of work – or at least give their approval.

And on top of that, if he saw this nonsense Swayze’d be spinning in his grave.

Kidding, he was cremated.

Sorry it’s been a while.

Eternal recurrence of the same & the “unbearable lightness of being”

“The unbearable lightness of being” is borrowed from the title Milan Kundera’s book.

Frederick Nietzsche’s “eternal return” theory posits that everything in life and the universe has occurred before, and will continue to occur again ad infinitum.  He suggests that the understanding of this adds a certain ‘weight’ to ones’ existence; that the knowledge that the universe is recurring imparts a responsibility upon us all to live a life that one would be prepared to repeat. That is to say that ones’ deeds should be just, and not a cause for shame or regret. This figurative weight upon our shoulders could be either a tremendous assignment of responsibility, or equally relief from it depending on your perspective. Life and its’ events, from this point of view, are meaningful because they are destined to repeat themselves.*

The contra, then, to Nietzschian philosophy is that every event – including life itself – is fleeting. That time is not a loop but an unending string, along which life begins and ends, the string carrying on – indifferent – as if those lives never even existed. The theory is that nothing ever repeats itself, and that if something never happens again, it may as well have never occurred in the first place. Life and the events that make up its story ultimately don’t matter; thus they need not be afforded any ‘weight’ as per Nietzsche’s way of seeing the world.

But neither of these philosophies apply to me. In the context of the universe, my existence doesn’t matter. To paraphrase** a better mind than my own, every hero and villain, king and peasant, empire and rebellion, Hitler and Elvis have existed for only the briefest of seconds. The universe carried on as if they never happened, as it will with me. I think this is neither cause for empty philosophising nor  callow rhetoric but a perfect alibi for making everything count.

That said, look at this paper gun I’m making. Four irrecoverable hours so far.

* Whether Nietzsche meant that they would repeat exactly, or through some proxy remains (at least to me) an enigma, but don’t let it weigh on you – philosophy is 99% bullshit anyway.

** – Because I’m not going to look it up.

Assignments & Deadlines

Cultural relativism and who “artists” think they are

I don’t make a career out of being cynical, but the time for mass praise heaped upon “artists” – which requires only the projection of an aesthetic to concieve oneself as such – should probably move along. You know what I mean by artist, right? That kind of maybe-attend-art-school but most likely a business student, takes polaroid photographs and through some act of murky revisionist history or selective amnesia will chastise anyone for liking a band/film/writer that they also do or have at some stage in their largely self-imagined past?

Praise is heaped upon this particular strand of “artist” by peripheral, sycophantic symbiotes to such an extent that it becomes impossible to distinguish the actually good from the barely mediocre. This is, of course, entirely deliberate: practically all of the admiration for hipsters is self-generated in the hope that some of the applause will reflect back upon themselves. It’s all very insidious, let me assure you.

Society – at least the strata that I occupy – is going through a second renaissance (or third, depending on your point of view) in which anyone who fits the vague and malleable image of “artist” is held in some lofty esteem by his or her peers. Simply, dress like you shop in a thrift store with your $100 haircut, and people suddenly assume you’re some kind of “creative” and a one-man social catalyst. This goes double if you’re in a myspace band.

I simply don’t understand the puddle-deep image that people create for themselves. Hipsterism: self-conceived artists, 18-34 age groups, viral marketing target audiences – all seem to hold themselves in such unrealistically high regard.

Looking a certain way doesn’t make you something you aren’t.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so intelligently designed by a creator.

I’ve had all four wisdom teeth out, and missed out on the only two sunny days of the week either in both my bed and a drug-addled stupor, or curled dangerously close to the Tv, playstation controller in hand.

Probably not good for my bespectacled eyes, another area in which god really dropped the ball.