Categories
ranting

Pandemic my ass

This post [neoformix.com] over at Neoformix shows a great graphic displaying where the swine flu ‘pandemic’ really fits into the big picture.

swine flu deaths compared with other communicable diseases

Yea, that’s right, a whole 8,118 deaths from swine flu. And this chart covers the 300 days up to November 24th. Twice as many people have died from dengue fever, and 200 times a many people have died from the runs! Diarrhea for god sakes has killed 200 times as many people as swine flu. Almost as many people died from leprosy! Holy shit!

And lets not talk about the millions who have died from fat white people diseases, like the 14 million who died of cardiovascular disease. ‘Cause you know that most of those 14 million were McDonald’s junkies.

I mean really, would the media find something else to talk about? Oh I know. How about the 151 thousand people who died from WAR!

Categories
photography

Why is this photo popular?

IMG_4230

This photo gets a lot more love than most of my photos. It has over 1200 views to date, putting it at #5 in my views list. This is almost all down to it being used in two online blogs: The Mr Brown Show [mrbrownshow.com] and MediaMemo at All Things D [mediamemo@allthingsd.com]. On the other hand only one person has marked this photo as a favorite and there are no comments so I’m not in any danger of it breaking into my Most Interesting [flickr.com] set, which tracks my top photos as ranked by Flickr’s “interestingness” algorithm, whatever that is. Though it might be in good company I don’t understand how some of those got popular either.

Categories
ranting

Bait and Switch

Bait and switch, like verbal slight-of-hand is one of the primary tools of politics and advertising… you should already be scared. It’s a sad state of affairs, and anymore it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys ’cause they all play the same game by the same rules; coercion as needed to meet the party line.

So, today I came across a link to an info-visual about the upsides of legalizing marijuana [sloshspot.com]. Nice, nice, I totally agree that we need to rethink the whole marijuana is illegal thing and I’m on the “Amsterdam model” side of the debate, though I want to see more debate before I make up my mind. But wait… what is this uncouth bait and switch with the statistics:

drug use greater than marijuana use

All the information on the info-visual references statistics that are marijuana specific… except the statistics in big ass green used to shock people… That $14.1 billion says Will be spent to reduce drug use and availability in 2009, (emphasis mine). But drug use implies more than just marijuana. This is the kind of dishonest behavior that makes me not like people in politics (and advertising) regardless of if I agree with their stance or ideas (or like their products.)

And let’s not mention that you can make statistics say anything you want, so this kind of cheating should be unnecessary. And always remember that 63% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Finally as a complete aside… I know some of the people that would be contributing to that $20 million for Virginia! You know who you are! “Puff puff, give. Puff puff, give. You fuckin’ up the rotation!”

Categories
ranting

Bob Madden

Live blogging the Bob Madden simminar… Just ’cause he asked how many people were.

“Capture the Heart of the Moment”

Photos very impressive. Being a long time Nat Geo reader I think I’ve seen most of them.

I think 90% of the people here are from Club Snap, a local Singapore photographers club.

Ok enough live blogging… Now to pay attention to the talk.

Ok, he just said something very important: decide before you go if you are going as a tourist or a photographer.

Very important, in reality most of the trips I take are somewhere in between. I want to take photos, but those with me are mostly just tourists. So I have a few minutes to take photos not all the time I need to get ‘the shot’.

Most of my photos from my first trip to Japan show this. I could have taken a lot better photos it I spent much more time. But the other guys were just taking snapshots… And there is always more to see. In the end, photography is one of my hobbies —but travel is one of my passions. I want to see more, just like my friends. So I take the photos I can and don’t annoy my fellow travelers.

Categories
ranting

Gmail ad snafu

Gmail ad snafu

I know Google is a whore for ad revenue, but how did that happen? Advertising your competitors products on your product page?