The latest

04
Jan

Strange journalism: Socialism to blame for missing five wicket haul

By Darragh|Blog|Be the first to comment!

It may be that odd things amuse me sometimes. The follow headline from an article by Wayne Smith in today’s edition of The Australian struck me as somewhat humourous.

Seriously? Socialism prevented Australia’s newest bowling sensation James Pattinson from reaching the five-wicket milestone against India at the second test in Sydney? How did this crazy situation come to pass? Well, Wayne Smith explains:

For those who can’t see that graphic, the key quote is:

“Pattinson surely would have had the third five-wicket haul of his brief Test career were it not for the fact that Michael Clarke takes a curiously socialist approach to his bowling changes, spreading the riches around so that all his pacemen might profit equally.” (emphasis added).

I know Clarke is running a tight ship at the moment, but who would have thought it was this strict. What’s he got going? Some kind of quota system? Does getting dropped actually mean being taken to gulags somewhere out in the Australian bushlands?

Those who have an inkling of understanding of first year political science would know, socialism, in a very basic sense, is about centralised ownership of the means of production and a rejection of the hegemony of free-market capitalism, something that seems wholly unsuitable for use as cricket metaphor (for the record, Wayne, perhaps the word ‘egalitarian’ might be better used to describe Clarke’s approach to bowler distribution).

Still, it does raise an interesting thought. The Australian, a Murdoch owned paper who has stated that they were out to destroy the Australian Greens, is well known to fall to the right of the ideological centre ground when it comes to its editorial direction, with things like “socialism” broadly being considered “bad”.

While I don’t suggest that Wayne Smith didn’t do anything other than incorrectly use a concept to describe events on a cricket pitch, it is somewhat conveniently amusing that it appeared in The Australian.

Actually, come to think about it, I’m pretty such that Sachin Tendulker’s failure to reach a century in the first innings of the Sydney test can be attributed somehow to trotskyism.

04
Jan

Arrows to the Knees

By Darragh|Blog|3 Comments

I was an adventurer once, then I took an arrow to the knee.

Feeling insecure is such an unfamiliar sensation. I’ve been blessed to have experienced a life of relative safety, and even when I drunkenly walked around the streets of Cusco, Peru in a pair of rainbow striped long johns, I never actually ever though I was in serious danger from anyone other than my drunken self.

But, thanks to a burglar, who broke into me and my girlfriend’s rental home on the last work day before Christmas last year, I’ve been reduced to a quivering mess. Not only did this brazen individual steel our personal belongings, including my prized cream Fender Telecaster (pictured below) and a copy of Skyrim (though I think my girlfriend might be secretly pleased about that one), but also managed to reduce me to a state of paranoia, and I now live with this unnerving fortress mentality.

My Telecaster

Having never been robbed before, my state of mind has been I’ve hardly left the house during my ten days holidays, and I’ve wallowed in this frustrating existence of fear and anger that has meant 2011 ended in a terrible fashion.

I recall being told of a famous quote by Greek philosopher and famous public masturbator Diogenes of Sinope that went along that ‘material goods will make slaves of us’. While I can’t track down a reliable reference – it might not even exist – but regardless, the idea behind it has some value.

I can’t help but feeling that this need to protect my goods results in endless patrolling of the my residence, baseball bat close to hand. I am inches away from becoming that crazy Christian Brother who used to live at my old primary school and allegedly chased kids with a shotgun loaded with rocks and gravel.

Speaking of which, if any Brisbane musician or otherwise spies a cream white Japanese telecaster for sale around Brisbane, I’d be grateful if you could me know.

02
Jan

As soon as I get my head round you

By Darragh|Blog, Brisbane|Be the first to comment!

Like most people connected to the Internet have already said, 2011 was an eventful year. Personally, not the best for me relative to other years, but I take comfort in the fact that I’m not imprisoned in a North Korean concentration camp.

In the spirit of resolutions, I’d like to tentatively earmark 2012 as the year of ‘Darragh Murray, humble music prodigy’. It hasn’t started well though, given that my prized fender telecaster was lifted from my home just before Christmas.

Anyway, the meat and potatos of this post is actually to promote a small gig I’m part of in early January. I’m playing drums with a local band called Chase Scenes and we’re about to put on a debut show at The Waiting Room, a great little DIY venue in West End.

While not my formal ‘debut’ as a drummer, having occasionally bashed the pots in previous bands, this is probably the first time where I’ll actually sit behind the kit for longer than five minutes. I can guarantee that at least one Jesus and Mary Chain cover is in this set.

Anyway, if you’re looking for cheap fun (in the non-guaranteed sense), you’re welcome to come along. It’s all going down at aforementioned Waiting Room on Saturday January 14th 2012. Other acts include The LoveBuckles and Go!Go!Go!Go!

It’s $7 and BYO and you can find the event is on friendface with further details.

13
Dec

Android to iPhone: Some thoughts

By Darragh|Thoughts|4 Comments

I’ve been using an iPhone 4S now for about a week after retiring my Google Nexus One. I bought the Nexus one in New York a little less than two years ago and it soldiered on for quite some time, and I was pretty pleased with it considering it only cost me $500 US to buy outright on release.

But changing needs meant I needed more power,  and since I’ve come to use my phone quite a bit for day to day activities, particularly for music and doing phone interviews (oh yeah, I do some music writing, if you didn’t already know).

For a long time I’d been dead against moving to iPhone mostly because of the costs involved. I didn’t want to be one of those seemingly crazy people who buy whatever Steve Jobs excretes (or should I say, excreted), and this is coming from someone who has been pretty much a dedicated Macbook user for the past two years*. But circumstances changed.

I had planned to upgrade to a Galaxy Nexus but reports of a flaw involving a whacky volume button put me off. Then I read that Samsung planned to upgrade its Galaxy series next year to the new quad core processors. Apple suddenly became a viable stopgap, particularly since I could get a 12-month post-paid contract. In a year, I could assess the latest Android phones against (one hopes) the iPhone 5.

After a week of using it, I can see why many iPhone fanatics love the device. I don’t think it’s quite ahead of Android as many think it is, but iOS 5 is a solid, usable operating system and the interface is slick and fast.

For a bit of fun, I’ve compiled a list of things I love about the iPhone, things I miss from my Nexus One/Android and things I do not miss from my Nexus One/Android.

Things I love about the iPhone/iOS 5

  • Interface is smoother, faster, feels less fragile than Android.
  • Audio output is higher quality and music player is mostly than the best Android counterpart (doubletwist is probably the most well known).
  • Voice memos recording is brilliant.
  • The things IOS 5 has lifted from Android (notifications, movable widgets) are done really well.
  • Third party applications ‘feel’ more robust. I love using Instagram, Foursquare, Words with Friends, Tweetbot.
  • Touchscreen keyboard absolutely destroys on the Android one, even when smart keyboard is installed on the Nexus device.
  • Camera is seriously good.
  • I’ve got 64 gigabytes of space to play with.

Things I miss from Android

  • The glowing notifications light. I could glance at my Nexus One from afar and figure out if I had a message, tweet or missed call. I can’t seem to do that on my iPhone without having to pick it up.
  • Using the trackball for editing messages, tweets, and search boxes. The iPhone equivalent isn’t as easy to use. Granted, this might only be Nexus One specific.
  • Dedicated google applications such as gmail, reader, latitude. Realise there are substitutes, but they’re not as good as the native android equivalents. I miss Gmail a lot and the exchange counterpart in iOS5 is no substitute. Hopefully Google get their stuff together an fix their failed gmail app.
  • Having a dedicated back button, though this is a small quibble. I’m getting used to using the on screen back button, and this is more a case of adapting.
    Chrome. I don’t care what you say. Safari blows and the Android browser is much better.

Things I do not miss.

  • One massive issue with the Nexus one was storage space. Even though it had an expandable storage space using MicroSD, critical applications, for some idiotic reason, required to use on board space in order to function, meaning I consistently ran out of space on the handset for apps since it seemed that every single app required to be installed to the handset rather than expandable memory.
  • My handset often went wacko, with processes crashing if the contact sync operation failed. Every couple of months, I’d have to resync all my contacts.
  • Many of the third party applications would crash without warning.
  • Keyboard sucks.

Beefs with iPhone

  • Only major beef isn’t exactly to do with phone design but a problem with my App Store account. I had a App Store account under the ‘old’ system, but to use iCloud I required to have an app store name tied to a specific email address. Through some stuffing around, I managed to get two app store accounts. Now I have some apps I’ve already paid for stored under one account, and others under another apps tore account. Apple won’t let me merge them…..yet

Overall impressions
I’m pretty pleased with my iPhone and glad I changed for the time being.. If you could combined the ‘things I love’ and ‘things I miss’ into one super awesome phone, you could conquer the world. Still, I’d change to Android again if the stars aligned – I’m not wholly obsessed with iOS5 …yet.

Also, my friend John Ellway wrote a great post on his essential apps for iPhone which I found really handy when trying to get my head around my phone. Read more here.

Siri
I haven’t mentioned Siri. To be honest, I find little use for Siri apart from some small novelty value. I also had little use for the voice to text functions that came naturally to Android. I mean. If you think about it, when would you ever start talking at your phone in actual reality? If you saw someone doing this on the street, you’d probably think they’re crazy, right?

Sure, I can tell it to ‘Call Kate’ or ‘Text Dave’, but the time spent waiting for the commands to be interpreted by Siri, I can actually do this myself using the interface. It’s only early days using this function and until I figure out a way of using this without having to hold the phone in my hand or too my face (if it’s at all possible), I won’t find any added value in Siri.

* Jokes aside, Apple do make some great products but I think they have to be assessed on their merits rather than perceived fashionability. The fact that Apple still haven’t got gaming sorted out is a big negative in my book.

01
Dec

Interview with Andy Falkous (Future of the Left)

By Darragh|Interview, Music Writing, Writing|Be the first to comment!

Future of the Left are back in the country, touring around Australia and visiting the Merideth music festival. For those who’ve read any interviews featuring the band’s front man, Andy ‘Falco’ Falkous, you’ll know him as one of the most hilarious conversationalists in the music biz.

I got the chance to talk to Falco for the second time, ahead of the band’s Australian tour and the release of their third record.

Rave published the interview this week. Here’s a snippet:

Interviewing Future Of The Left’s Andy ‘Falco’ Falkous is a dream gig. Falco’s witty, erudite and engaging demeanour makes for a special and often educational experience. It seems difficult to catch the ex-Mclusky frontman on a bad day, and his fondness for a self-deprecating turn of phrase is immediately obvious when I dare to ask what he’s been doing of late.

“On a personal level, looking for a fucking job! With my CV, that’s a real pain in the arse, ‘cause the gaps in my CV generally happen to somebody who’s been on tour for a long time as a roadie for Motörhead … or has been in prison,” he states emphatically. “On another level, trying to actually finish this album.”

I’ve caught Falco the night before the band is due to complete their third full-length record, The Plot Against Common Sense. While Future Of The Left are set to tour Australia before the record’s release in January, Falco explains that the delay in getting album finished and released was unavoidable.

“We’ve been so excited about this record; I mean we’ve known we’ve had something special on our hands for a while, but it’s been frustrating having that just beyond our reach now for the last month or so. [After it’s finished], I’m going to have two days of injecting a series of lagers directly into my eyes in order to recuperate from the experience.

Read the full thing here.

A longer expanded version of the interview was syndicated in The Brag, Sydney’s premier independent street press. It has even more humorous quotes and anecdotes. Click on the image below to have a read. I’ll post the direct link to the article when/if The Brag put it online.

16
Nov

Some initial concerns on selling uranium to India

By Darragh|IR, Thoughts|Be the first to comment!

Uranium mining is a particularly divisive topic in Australia. It was only ten years ago that news headlines were dominated by those protesting the development of a uranium mine at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory. However, yesterday, the Australian discourse surrounding uranium took an unexpected detour, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard openly courting the idea of selling uranium to India.

While Australia has been selling uranium to other states for some time, the significance of this move is that the Prime Minister is considering selling Australian uranium to a state who is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

For those not in the know, the NPT is the primary international agreement that seeks to control the sale of materials between states in an effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. True, it is lopsided, with non-nuclear weapon states (the vast majority) being prevented from developing nuclear weapons, while nuclear weapon states are obliged to pursue disarmament (though with no strict timetable). However, the agreement permits the trade of nuclear material between signatories for non-weapons ‘safe’ purposes such as energy.

However, India, along with Pakistan and Israel, are non-signatories, and therefore theoretically prevented from purchasing nuclear materials from states within the NPT regime. The first two are confirmed nuclear powers. Furthermore, India is not (yet) a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which places further exports control on the trade of nuclear material between signatories, which goes beyond the NPT.

I must confess that this sudden change in foreign policy is somewhat disturbing, arguably undermining Australia’s disarmament credentials, increasing tensions between nuclear powers in the region, all in favour of short-term domestic economic gains. It is true that other states signatories to the NPT, such as the United States, have opened up bilateral channels with India and have actively traded in nuclear technology with India over the past few years. However, I find this fact to be a less than convincing justification for an act that sets a dangerous precedent for Australia, a country that sits within a region with growing security concerns. I love India and I love Indians, but the ongoing friction between Pakistan and India, both armed with nuclear weapons, means that the possibility of nuclear exchange is a definite reality. This is something that might not be evident to Aussie Joe citizen given our relative isolation in the South Pacific.

Furthermore, if we’re going to sell to India, why don’t we also sell to Pakistan? Does it even open the possibility of selling to North Korea? Does it legitimise other countries with fewer scruples from supplying other states with nuclear material that could be used in nuclear weapons? Considering the worries over Iran’s clandestine nuclear program, the Prime Minister’s position on uranium sale should be thoroughly scrutinised, with its wider possible international implications teased out.

Some tweets from the PM yesterday, which sought to reassure concerned Australians about the safeguards, also seemed flimsy. She stated that India was the world’s largest democracy, inferring that this somehow acted as a safeguard. History shows otherwise, Julia. The only state to use a nuclear weapon in war was a democracy. Moreover, it is true that sections of the US politic recommended using strategic nuclear weapons against the VietCong during the Vietnam War. Democracy does not mean a nuclear muzzle.

It’s only the start of the debate, and I really need to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the proposed policy if it does eventuate. The Interpreter has an interesting piece arguing the other way, that selling uranium to India will actually bring Australia closer to the subcontinent. Still, there are risks, and the government need to explain the safeguards in detail to assure sceptics like myself.

Some closing questions that are of interest. Will the proposed sale of uranium to India harm Australia’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council? And how will this affect Australia’s relationship with Pakistan? Will it damage Australia’s disarmament creditials? How will China react? All pertinent questions that could be impacted by this new foreign policy angle.

1 2 3 4 ... 14