Let me get this straight, some knucklehead gamer had an Xbox overdose and for some reason now believes he has something to look forward to in jail? What a tough guy, then again, I suppose his ass would have to be.
That’s right, a 19-year-old Whangarei man under house arrest had pleaded with police to serve the rest of his 11-month sentence in jail because he was “sick of playing Xbox.” Funny part is, he was granted his wish:
A Whangarei man who said he was “sick of playing Xbox” while on home detention has got his wish to serve the rest of his sentence in jail after calling police to tell them he was going to breach detention.
Senior Constable Paul Nicholas, of Whangarei police, said the Hikurangi man rang police on Tuesday to say he was bored serving home detention, was sick of playing Xbox and would rather serve the rest of his sentence in jail instead.
Mr Nicholas said the 19-year-old had already served 10 months of an 11-month home detention term and with one month to go “had run out of Xbox games to play.”
He said the man told police he would breach his home detention if he wasn’t picked up and taken to jail. The man got his wish and is now in Ngawha Prison.
Data journalist, Matt Stiles, compiled a data chart for each day of the year ranking how many babies were born in the United States on each date from 1973 to 1999.
“Apparently, people like to make babies around the winter holiday season because a large proportion of babies are born in September.”
It seems climate does indeed affect our behavioral patterns, which is understandable, just keep in mind that this data is from the United States alone. Even though this chart claims my DOB is uncommon, I was born on an island and not in America so I don’t think I’m represented here. Nevertheless, this is an interesting trend to monitor:
Disclaimer: There isn’t any actual academic advice for you here. It just made a good title and stuck. …I dunno, drink lots of water. 😀
Had my last meeting with Dr Sophie Eliza Tomlinson this week. I am relieved* our meetings are over but also kind of sad. It was suggested to me that I see an adviser by an on-campus organisation but doing so was not mandatory, and since then no one from that organisation has even contacted me or Sophie about it, which is weird and/or just lazy. I’m still not 100% certain why I was chosen and given an academic adviser in the first place, but I am glad to have met Dr Tomlinson. She is interesting. The first meeting felt a little like I was on parole (I’m generalizing of course) and the second time felt a bit like going to see a personal psychiatrist. Our last meeting felt like both of those, only I had a lot more to say about my university experience thus far, to which Sophie had much more helpful and encouraging advice to impart.
Also in the week gone by, I collected an essay I had written one night before its due date and received an ‘A-‘ for it — lulz — and a lecturer from a different course asked if he could use one of my tutorial assignments as an example text in one of his classes next semester. Not bad for one week. I think I’m just going to play it cool from here on and ease-up with the stress. Self-doubt is not healthy.
In regards to an earlier post; I stopped my lecturer after class and asked about her personal view on the usage of a scientific term for a non-scientific paper. She said, ‘consider it like freeware.’ I’m not cool with that explanation, but at least now I am assured of her standards for marking the upcoming exam. I may choose not to wholeheartedly believe everything that is taught, but exams are about conveying what I have learnt and convincing my grader I understood what was taught. If using scientific jargon is what it takes to pass, why fight the system? OK, I may still have a few of lessons to learn about being confident with myself and my own words enough to contest and persuade people’s expectations, but good things take time. I am an astute learner after all.
I like the revision process of writing, but writing freehand for marking purposes truly frightens me. Do you see the irony here? A writer who is afraid of his work being read. Essays are one thing but exams have me worried, and in my head, I’m still trying to pinpoint why this is. I guess it’s because I think my unrefined thoughts are messy, but I have to accept this process as an unavoidable part of academia — you have to be vulnerable enough to allow the right people to see you. Through your work, I mean.
The ethics surrounding future “killer robots” or LARs (lethal autonomous robots) was recently brought to the fore at the United Nations in Geneva. Christof Heyns, Professor of Human Rights Law, presented a special report on 30 May 2013 which he warned that LARs — none currently deployed in any battlefield but very much in development — could blur the lines of command in war crimes cases. He added that action must be taken before the technology overtakes existing legislation.
Heyns made a logical appeal to ban the development of robots that could kill without any human input. Hayns gives a great abstract argument about future technology and how failure to define or comprehend its implications will result in… anarchy, I suppose. Here’s the full audio report from UNOG:
I’m not convinced that a law ban will phase-out the development of LARs, but I am convinced that Heyns has many more proposals for the UN to consider in regards to “autonomous systems” and their protocols for saving lives and killing them. Perhaps this is the first stepping stone towards creating a few robotic laws of some sort, “hint hint:”
Anarchy, not revolution ^ Not yet anyway.
Basically, new laws are destined to be made in order to define what these new weaponized robots are — killer rombas or killer garden-sprinklers — and who will be accountable for their actions and lack of programming should something go wrong. Whose to say that a robot malfunction doesn’t fall under the legal term, act of God? Hopefully these laws, as Heyns suggested, are created and pass before LARs become a reality. You can’t prosecute a robot, so surely a new level of weaponry deserves new legislation to safeguard the possibility of their being any victims injured in the event of robotic deployment, implicit or not. LARs sound to me like a deterministic excuse, and man must remain responsible (see Jean-Paul Sartre‘s definition of anguish — Existentialism and Humanism), otherwise, what on Earth are we living for? Create robots to find and f-over so man can forget it ever happened and feel nothing? Any mechanism that comes between a man and his moral judgements removes sincerity from accountability — the psychology of morality in other words. I’m astounded at how genius robotics experts and UN officials can be so naive. Christof Heyns makes absolute sense to me and I truly hope people in power take him seriously. I doubt me blogging about the topic is going to effect any change.
The only reasonable justification I see for manufacturing autonomous weapons is ‘kill or be killed,’ which taken out of context of human self-defense, doesn’t justify the development of LARs. Robotic deterrents for the sake of intimidation is a pitiful use of science and technology. I don’t approve of weapons of war, but unmanned-drones at least have an operator making reasoned decisions with the knowledge of the worth of a human life.
If this reminds you of every movie you’ve ever seen with a robot in it, that’s because speculative science fiction has always simulated the future, and technology in its state of perpetual growth always catches up to those speculations allowing for those clever geniuses in reality to imitate fiction in miraculous ways. The significance of this event is the fact that the UN will have to at some point create new laws to define and support the use of LARs if their development is not banned outright for the reasons stated above, because sadly, we are all of us living in a gun-toting, human-fearing world.
A lethal automaton would make no sense* of that part of our illogical psychosis: the benefit of someone’s death.
After thanking Sir Patrick Stewart for his work with Amnesty International, Heather Skye, who is a major Star Trek fan, asked a personal and majorly cool question; what is he most proud of outside of acting — not such a common query at Comicpalooza and events of that like. Patrick Stewart’s insightful response showed great dignity in regards to his family and violence against women, and for Heather, it came with a hug:
What a great man, and that was extremely brave of Heather to raise the issue of domestic abuse in a public Q&A forum. You can read Heather’s personal response about the experience @ her blog: lemonsweetie.tumblr.com. I also feel like I should point out that Heather’s cosplay and face markings of Jadzia Dax — from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fame — are out of this nexus. Very cool:
The same studio that brought us ‘From Love to Bingo‘ have created yet another well made love story, entirely from stock video footage from Getty Images:
Why did I think this was going to be fun and any different from previous experiences? A part of me knows I am more than capable of acing my exams, although, another part of me is so disillusioned by the authority given to the markers — considering their own expectations, counter to my own, are potential variables against my words being graded fairly — that I almost want to counter their expectations and contest my lecturer’s theories and use the exam as my time to do it in, because I don’t believe everything I have been taught so far and can articulate my reasons why. (“Social” paradigm shift, pfftt, why not just spit on Thomas Kuhn’s grave!) However, now is probably not the time, even though I feel it should be.
Exam time just seems…unnecessary. I can’t address what I have personally gained from my learning, I can only reiterate what has been taught, proving nothing new to me. Worse still, I have no one to talk to and bounce my thoughts around with. I am frustrated. I’m not even sure if what I’m trying to get off my chest even has anything to do with exams or the University experience. Maybe, subconsciously, I just want someone to tell me I’m wrong, and that everything is going to be alright.
Will marks gained from the exams prove beneficial and payoff in the grand scheme of my life? Yes. Will the questions and content of the exams and how I answer to them have an effect on the grand scheme of my life? Fuck no. To me, exams are a way of evaluating course statistics by using student results to monitor the curriculum, and not expand upon the individual’s learning. Exams remind me of IQ tests, or Lotto; fun and meaningful for some, but not for others who know why. My point is, I dislike being examined. Who on Earth has the authority to tell me how well I am, based within the bubble of their own created curriculum and exam questions? (Exams; now there’s a bygone tradition due for a paradigm shift.) I’m going to brew some green tea now, light a few aroma scented candles and draw myself a hot bath before I drown myself in self-doubt and gibberish, so help me Gandalf! Then I will study.
‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’ ~ Marcus Cicero
How can someone possibly call their desired dream home a dream home if it doesn’t cater for books?! I keep my books in boxes but only because I don’t have an adequate shelf worthy of their display. The possibilities to express a love and respect for books just blows my mind. Who knew bookshelves could evoke such envy? Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I am beholding some gorgeous shelves: photos via bookshelfporn.com
The Baroque library Biblioteca Joanina (King John’s Library)
Prof. Richard Macksey’s Home Library, via John Hopkins University
A Bookshelf Headboard
Upstairs in the The Last Bookstore, Los Angeles
A Skylight Library
A studio apartment in Paris
A slide… As popular as e-books become, nothing will ever compare to reading a good book. To be able to hold an entire world in the palm of your hands and know the power of a deity has to fold back and forth through time with the delicate lives of people between their fingertips; to know someone’s deepest desires, hear their voice and share their secrets at your leisure, and the ability to feel someone elses troubles and admire their loves, is a quality I don’t believe can be fully translated to a digital device. Something is lost, not narratively speaking but in character of the book that only a book and all its parts can form — a unique haven for a unique world and all the voices that belong in it.
E-books just smoosh stories into a single, messy multiverse that is susceptible to cross contamination with illiterate nonsense. I’m not gaga over bookshelves, but books are something special.
Well put, Lisa. It’s funny to me to think that we show better care for books than we show for each other. If anyone is interested; the best bookshop I’ve stepped in has to be HardtoFind Secondhand BookShop in Onehunga. It’s a book-lovers comfort zone:
Sci-fi never went anywhere, but as far as good Hollywood films are concerned, heavy-science-fiction blockbusters have been few and far in between. And no, Transformers and Battleship have no science-based elements in them so they don’t count. Nor should they be considered any good for that matter.
Fiction is one thing but Speculative Fiction has to address its core idea from an exploratory, hypothetical point of view and not simply sugarcoat the invasion cliché, which is largely what the majority of Hollywood studio produced sci-fi has equated to. Anyone see the Total Recall reboot? Not exactly the mind-trip I was expecting.
Having blah blahed, the movies below look so cool that I’m willing to forget my finicky attention to detail, just so long as I’m entertained, which these sweet trailers have already achieved — Hurry up and come take my money!!!
CineFix’s use of low-tech budget effects are inventive and reminds me of what makes filmmaking so much fun:
The rooftop showdown with the famous shot of Neo dodging bullets gets the homemade makeover without VFX.
Those bullet sound-waves are cool. Checkout the CineFixYoutubePage for the comparison video and many more budget-friendly, made with love, “sweded” movie homages. I’ll just leave this here:
Why did I think this was going to be fun and any different from previous experiences? A part of me knows I am more than capable of acing my exams, although, another part of me is so disillusioned by
course statistics by using student results to monitor the curriculum, and not expand upon the individual’s learning. Exams remind me of IQ tests, or Lotto; fun and meaningful for some, but not for others who know why. My point is, I dislike being examined. Who on Earth has the authority to tell me how well I am, based within the bubble of their own created curriculum and exam questions? (Exams; now there’s a bygone tradition due for a paradigm shift.) I’m going to brew some green tea now, light a few aroma scented candles and draw myself a hot bath before I drown myself in self-doubt and gibberish, so help me Gandalf! Then I will study.
🎭 