Penguin Review: Barecove Radler

I must start this review with an admission. I have not the faintest clue what a “Radler” beer is. However, I will convince you that this knowledge is irrelevant, much like knowing what a scooter is.

This penguin has recently relocated north, in order to study a new species of humans, known as Queenslanderatas Simplisticus. Or so the Victorian humans told me, they were not exactly neurosurgeons themselves. While at my local “Bottle-O”, known to most of the world as a liquor store, I looked for a beer I had never tasted before.

I was faced with a dilemma.

XXXX Summer Edition, or Barecove Radler – infused with lemon and lime. My heart was set on trying something new, but this seemed like choosing between being teabagged by a bikie, or watching a Hugh Grant movie. A very large contrast, but I don’t feel like admitting to either of them.

I chose Hugh Grant.

Barecove is awful from start to finish. I’m not going to spend a lot of time trying to explain it, but it is like drinking a watered down Corona through a lemon and lime straw. The straw is a similie for the inappropriateness of this addition to a beer in any circumstance.

Most right thinking drinkers will hate this beer. If you drink this beer and hate it, give yourself 10 points.

Two types of people will love this beer, and they should be avoided at all costs.

The first type are Corona drinkers. Only ditzy females, effeminate men, or a hardened drinker of lemonade fall into this category. The radler will taste very familiar to the Corona with lemon and lime they drink in tactless clubs while talking about American Idol.

The other type of person who will enjoy this beer is someone who hates beer. I don’t mean this in a “I only drink vodka and OJ” type of way, rather like “I hate alcohol and all people who drink it, they should suffer like me”.

This is the perfect beer for fundamentalist Muslims and Christians. Enough said.

This penguin does not declare his support

Over the past few days a symphony of coordinated voices have been chirping their support for Gillard. At her lowest ebb, with the rancid stench of failure turning even the most populist of measures against her, the unwavering support of her colleauges is bemusing. No one wants to rock the boat. Pity, because it is already upside down.

What an interestingly unique human behaviour. Things are awful, let’s change nothing just in case it gets worse. And if you dare think pragmatically you had better keep it to yourself.

I tried to think of situation where this behaviour may be useful. I listed them below:
- Self-sabotage;
- Nothing.

Will someone put her out of our misery?

Hotel X-Ray 452

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Bravo Uniform Foxtrot
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Bravo Uniform Foxtrot

Intellectual Property – Humanity in Denial

As a casual observer of the human race, I find intellectual property an peculiar subject.

The idea that a human can own an idea.

‘My idea’. Nobody may use my idea without first gaining my permission, and submitting to my demands for recognition, money or control.

Not the intellectual property of any person. Feel free to use as you wish.

It seems to be such a bizarre departure from building blocks of humanity.

Could you imagine the poor cave dweller who invented fire, clubbing to death anyone who used fire without paying him in fine skins? What if the only machine capable of slicing bread was owned by baker who came up with the idea? Do you think Boeing pays royalties to the Wright brothers?

Mimicry is a fundamental part of humanity. Children use it to learn to socialise and communicate. Even adults use it, albeit in more subtle ways, trying to out-do one another, competing in business and sport.

Lets face it, humans are pretty average at most things. They are surpassed by other species at most survival pursuits – running, swimming, strength, eyesight, hearing, smell.

What humans have is intelligence. Key to intelligence is learning, and the mastery of mimicry has streamlined the learning process, leading to a species that is capable of learning more in 10 years than any other animal can in a lifetime (apart from penguins of course).

Despite being the only species to keep written record of history, and actively investigate its own origins, it consistently fails to learn from its own history. I just cannot help but to think that vigourous defence of intellectual property is yet another example of human regression.

The World According to Twiggy: The Mining Tax is “Un-Australian”

Apparently, Twiggy is unhappy he missed did the red carpet treatment your redheaded leader so generously gave the big miners. He claims her treatment of his small, unprofitable firm is un-Australian.

So this Antarctican wonders, what else is un-Australian? So, I compiled a list of self-serving patriotic slights:
- Chicken
- Hunting bans
- Climbing big rocks
- Tradesmen who charge too much
- Apartment living
- Overseas holidays
- Binge-drinking
- Responsible drinking
- Not giving immigrants a fair go
- Banning Mexican waves
- Not paying taxes
- Dole bludgers
- Shooting and eating kangaroos
- Foreign cars
- Government support for unprofitable companies
- Imported bananas
- Not eating kangaroos
- Collecting taxes for government handouts
- Mexican waves
- Dodgy tradesmen
- Urban sprawl
- Foreigners

Seems it can be pretty much anything you want it to be. Well, there appears to be one thing that is unambiguously Aussie:

Whining.

Toughen up sunshine.

Chuck Norris Fact of the Week

Chuck ordered the Almighty God not to go ahead with the rapture on Saturday as God was not planning to use martial arts on the heathens.

The rapture according to Harold: But it did happen!

Harold Camping is out of hiding. As a penguin, I would have thought it would be to bask in the glory of tapping into the one of the true weaknesses of humans, fear.

Alas, I was wrong. He resurfaced to assert how right he was. Yes you heard that correctly. Google it if you need to. Apparently, the rapture was “spiritual”, and the apocalypse is still on schedule for October 21.

He might just be right. Or, like most people with delusions, he will justify them in the face of even the most obvious invalidating evidence.

You can hardly blame him though, as organised religion has been in using fear and regressive justification for thousands of years. He is just being a good disciple.

Thought Experiment Response: Anonymous Communication

I was stuck thinking for a while about numbers stations. They are obviously communications, but it is difficult to tell who they are transmitted by, and impossible to determine the intended recipient.

It led me to the idea of using torrents. You could include coded message as a part of a high demand torrent (say as a watermark in a video, or as an attached text file). I don’t think it is something that would blatantly grab attention (not as a communication tool anyway), and once independently seeded you can remove yourself as a seeder, and hence sever the link identifying communication between you and your malicious friend.

You would be difficult to trace as the originator (I suppose depending on how it was listed, and whether you used an Anonymous proxy/tor), and even if the message was found, the difficulty in determining who it was meant for is also quite large.

If you are particularly paranoid you could also use tor, as end-to-end correlation would be quite difficult with the way torrents are broke up.

Now that I think about it, p2p filesharing could be one of the few ways to amplify your message while retaining anonymity.

Thought Experiment: Perfectly Concealed Communication?

I have always wondered about perfectly secretive communication. Not just encryption (as one-time pads are more than enough for perfect secrecy of the message), but how to protect the knowledge that communication has occurred?

The year is 2012, and the evil forces of Cthulhu has invaded your country, and overthrown your weak and inept government. While Cthulhu and his minions are neither weak nor inept, it is not for your benefit. They are using your people as livestock for food, and as golf-balls for pleasure.

Let’s say that you and a friend that lives 1000km from you are both suspected terrorists. Actually, for the sake of the thought experiment, you are terrorists, planning to bring down the evil government. Cthulhu knows this, because you were both in the old, weak government together (possibly as voice coaches for Julia Gillard). Because of this, you are considered dangerous public enemies and various Cthulhu government agencies have you under surveillance, tapping phones, intercepting data and mail, monitoring your house and the people you come into contact with.

You need to coordinate with your friend to achieve your goal, however if the government find out you are communicating to each other, you are both toast and your country is doomed to be rules forever by Cthulhu and his slimy tentacles. Mmmm, juicy, slimy tentacles of evil.

Rules:
1. It has to be achievable with currently available technologies, that you could purchase without arousing suspicion as a private citizen.
2. It must either be a very reliable communication system (>99% transmissions received and understood), or it has to have feedback to the sender that the transmission failed.
3. You, and your friend are under constant surveillance.
4. Simple third-party relays will not suffice, it is assumed that the authorities are naturally suspicious of anyone you communicate with.
5. No knowledge that a communication has occurred between you and your friend can be gained by the authorities.

I’ll post back when I think I’ve got something.

The Rapture – Harold Camping proves there is no God

There is much schadenfraude today, directed at Harold Camping, for the apparent false prediction of the rapture today.

Sure, there have been no earthquakes, and Raptor Jeepers is not shooting lasers at heathens, but I submit that the true believers of the only true religion have been taken from this planet to bask in eternity.

The fact that nobody was taken is irrelevant – either there are no true believers, or there is no true religion. Did Harold Camping disprove the existence of God?