bLOGOS/HA HA: Endgame at the Blue Room

David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

11 August 2016

Endgame at the Blue Room

On Tuesday night Australia attempted a national census.

By 7.30pm, after just two million citizen entries and four concerted Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shut their site down.

Thirty-six hours later, it is still down.

"Heads will roll," declares PM.

Endusers :

Two key messages :

The first is, if y0u want enduser acceptance, you need to actually go and consult with them and listen to the endusers.

And then the second thing is, you need to listen to concerns when seven Senators, a Deputy Privacy Commissioner, and a former lead statistician of the country all raise privacy concerns and you sweep them away as if they count for nothing, don't be surprised if people are pretty unhappy.

- Dr Suelette Dreyfus (Computer Security lecturer, Melb. Uni)

The Drum, ABC.TV yesterday.

Endgamers :

Since the narrow re-election of the conservative Turnbull government last month, we've been intrigued to note the preference for an 'Endgame' set in the Prime Minister’s Press Conference Room, the Blue Room.

Instead of the previously favoured dark minimal unobtrusive lecterns...

Environment minister Greg Hunt, Prime minister Tony Abbott and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at a press conference in the blue room of Parliament House, Canberra this morning, Tuesday 11th August 2015. Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian

...the would-be gravitees now elect to address the nation from monumental white heraldic dustbins.

Endgame by Samuel Beckett : Clov cannot sit, Hamm cannot stand and his discarded parents Nell and Nagg are trapped in dustbins struggling to comprehend a world in which they are terrified of “starting to mean something”.