It's all lies!

How many lies do you believe are true?

Got a question for you - how did Apple start?
Steve & Woz in their garage, building their first computer together is what most of you will say... LIES!

Both of them worked at HP and Atari. Both of them were involved in the formative years of those companies - Woz tried to sell his idea to HP and they didn't go for it, so Steve and Woz went out on their own. Sure, they had a garage, they also had formal training and careers in the industry long before breaking out on their own.

How about Youtube?
Two dudes who wanted to share their videos with one another in a discussion after a dinner party... LIES!

Steve Chen and Chad Hurley both cut their teeth at PayPal. In fact, Hurley was one of PayPal's first employees and helped designed its logo. He is also the son-in-law of James Clark, who founded Netscape and Silicon Graphics. A long way from college kids who did it "for kicks".

How many other stories are like this - creation myths, expounded and exaggerated and falsified to sell a story rather than to tell the truth?

I'd argue all of them.

Chris Columbus' is a long cry from looking for India from the West in order to prove the world wasn't flat amongst a mutinous crew. In actuality, he went off looking for gold to get rich so he could get favour of the Queen, and sailors of his day knew the world was round from sailing around the ocean and navigating by the stars and an astrolabe for centuries.

Of course, the greatest creation myth of all is the one found in the Bible, but that's probably unfairly called out because it was the first reproduced in book form and accessible to the 'common man', the first to be set to a specific formula and stay that way, rather than alter and change like so many spoken myths before it.

But for centuries, people have been faking this myth, making it believable by things like the Shroud of Turin or Solomon's Pomegranate.

This is why the only truth is in archeology, the only science to believe is history.

Melbourne media makes me want to stab!

The news in Melbourne is absolutely pathetic.

Oversensationalised bullshit everywhere you turn.

I thought it was just Andrew Bolt, but it appears to be the all over the Herald Sun.

Sunday's Herald Sun had a story about knifes. One sentence read "Critics say Melbourne's "stab city" reputation has been festering for years, but is only now being taken seriously." but then makes absolutely no mention of who these critics are or where they have been saying it 'for years', at all.

A google search for "stab city" brings up many hits, but bugger all related to Melbourne. You would think that these critics would at least have a blog hit or two!

I realise it's imaginary critics making imaginary comments that is trying to pass for news, but unfortunately the suburban Melbournite dumb fucks believe this tripe day in, day out.

I'm yet to pick up the Age, but I don't hold Fairfax in the highest regard either.

But even the ABC suffers from it! I used to watch ABC news because in Adelaide the presenter was really good, one of the reporters really hot, and the stories were the least sensationalised out of the lot.

Yes, they're biased to some degree, but I don't mind bias. The Herald Sun is biased too. So is the Age. I can see that bias and accept it as part of modern media.

However, the ABC's story about the Beadeez toys that made children sick was so over the top I ended up turning the news off. "Toys banned in all states except Victoria"... "no comment from the manufacturer"... Maybe because it was a PUBLIC HOLIDAY and even I was hard to reach?!

The ABC host is also terrible at reading the news. Where did they dig that fool up from?

It's sad, sad times when the Weekly World News looks like something that rivals the New York Times.

How real are the commentators?

I was thinking about something whilst looking at Andrew Bolts blog today - How many of those people are REAL people with real desire to know more and debate the issues Bolt puts forth, and how many are news corp stooges and cronies?

Likewise with the AdelaideNOW blog, which is full of praise for the new layout?

I don't like the new page because the stories are different from the Advertiser, meaning if I want to read the front page I have to go buy the paper, which I refuse to do. I'm not paying for one or maybe two stories. Also, you used to be able to read the paper and stories from up to a week previously, but I can no longer find that functionality on the website.

Sure, I can go online and read other sites, but when Adelaide only has one news source, it kind of makes it a little hard to find stuff about us from an Adelaide perspective. But that's besides the point.

Anyway, on Sunday there was a story by Amanda Blair, an ex Adelaide radio jock, about how DJs and radio hosts are aware that most callers to the station are fake.

And it got me thinking... how do we know these blog commentators aren't fake?

The posts are moderated anonymously, and there's nothing to tie people to their posts like other sites like Kotaku or even a web forum.

I added a comment to the AdelaideNow website, and hopefully Rod, the editor, can answer...

Hey Rod,

Just like to get your opinion on something...

Given that the fake radio caller thing has been blown wide open by the Sunday Mail (well, for those listeners too stupid to realise the truth beforehand anyway), I'd like to know what guarantees do we have that people responding to these blogs aren't just newspaper people posing as 'concerned readers'.

Because the posts are moderated before we see them, I feel that this is very open to abuse, much like the Radio calls.

Surely a registered user database would be better than anonymous posting coupled with anonymous moderating.