Why Starbucks Failed (in Australia)

Aractus 28, July, 2018

Oh my Gawd this video is terrible, but please start by watching it and I’ll go over what the yanks just don’t get: Okay, where do I begin? Well I guess with the reason why Starbucks failed in Australia – they made TERRIBLE coffee. It tasted like shit. And they were run like a generic […]

My Health Record: Opt-out NOW!

Aractus 16, July, 2018

Today marks the first day for three months that you can choose to opt out of a My Health Record. In this post, having just done so myself, I hope to convince you to do so as well. My expertise in in public health, and so I am perfectly qualified to explain both sides of […]

Atheist bible studies

Aractus 30, June, 2018

Welcome to my brand new academic blog series. I call it my Atheist Bible Studies. This will be the introductory post, and for this series I will choose topics that Evangelical Christians will find challenging, but which everyone else (atheist, liberal Christian, or other theist) probably won’t. I should note that I’m not an anti-theist, […]

New theme

Aractus 17, June, 2018

(Last updated 12/11/2020) This blog works best with FireFox. Welcome to the brand new theme for my blog. I spent the last two weeks creating it – completely from scratch, even the background images are unique (made from royalty-free images I found on the internet). The only thing that hasn’t changed just yet is the […]

Have scholars been lying about P137?

Aractus 12, June, 2018

On his blog, well-known bible scholar Larry Hurtado gave me a public dressing-down while laying out his reasons for not publishing a comment I made to his previous blog post. He didn’t name me, but I will confirm it is my comment he is talking about. He didn’t abide the use of the word “lie”, […]

First Century manuscript of Mark published!

Aractus 24, May, 2018

This blog entry has gone under several revisions. Last updated 02/06/2018. Yes you read right, this isn’t clickbait. The First Century Manuscript of the Gospel of Mark that Dr. Daniel B Wallace told the world about during a debate in February 2012 with Dr. Bart Ehrman has, finally, been published. The debate is here. The […]

US accuses NK of unleashing WannaCry

Aractus 20, December, 2017

And it’s probably bullshit. Here’s the first reason to think this was not North Korea… it made the hackers barely any money. In total only around 360 people or so paid the ransom. The hackers were not prepared to receive large numbers of payments as there was no way for them to immediately identify a […]

The Last Jedi: Reviewed

Aractus 15, December, 2017

So, if we are to believe some critics this is a “near perfect reboot of the franchise”. These are the same corporate shills that told us The Force Awakens was a good movie. I was told online and in-person that I was totally wrong about TFA, the people who told me it in person were […]

Jigsaw: Review

Aractus 04, November, 2017

What makes a good slasher film? Well firstly they are divisive by design. Some people love a good horror movie, others don’t. I’m quite partial to the Giallo genre, it elevated slashers into mainstream cinema while US horror movies of every kind were the kiss of death to any director or actor hoping to improve […]

Deckard is NOT a fucking replicant!

Aractus 07, October, 2017

I was going to incorporate this rant into the BR 2049 review, however the rant became so epic I decided it needed its own space. Now I know, many people will disagree. I used to think so too – in fact the first version of Blade Runner I saw as a kid was the Director’s […]

Blade Runner 2049 review…

Aractus

I thought I’d post a nice early BR 2049 review for people. I’ll keep it mostly spoiler free, I’ll tell you just some mild stuff that you learn in the first act anyway. If you’ve seen the theatrical trailer that contains more spoilers than this post. Also let me be upfront in saying that I […]

CSIRO-backed Flexi diet evidence review

Aractus 18, September, 2017

Introduction The diet industry is huge. And mostly it doesn’t work. Why is this? Well, it’s actually quite straightforward. People are set up for failure by an industry that thrives on people failing and coming back. They don’t really care whether their clients succeed or not, so long as they can profit from their efforts. […]

Same Sex Marriage Postal Survey

Aractus 04, September, 2017

So I thought I would tackle this one. To be upfront I will “vote” yes in the survey, but I’m about to make a pretty compelling argument for the “No” case. And one that frankly isn’t being made but is by far their most legitimate argument that is free from secondary concerns like the bullying […]

Westworld S01 review

Aractus 31, August, 2017

The first original android story I’ve seen since Robocop. And that’s quite an achievement seeing as it’s based on a 1973 Michael Crichton (rip) film. I’d say it was a great series, not perfect by any means, but that I won’t be awaiting its second series. Be warned now that this review will contain many […]

My 600-lb Life: Real or Fake?

Aractus 30, August, 2017

Fake. I like to be upfront, I saw for some reason a video come up on YouTube with a click-bait title “my 600 lb life exposed” where the lady claims she did her research and she’s concluded that it’s “real”. Well she’s wrong, and this entry will explain why she’s wrong. So first off let’s […]

Alien: Covenant nonsense explained

Aractus 15, August, 2017

A:C is the disappointing sequel to Prometheus. Prometheus wasn’t perfect, but at least it did break new ground and advance the story. A:C’s crowning achievement is to have stagnated the Alien back-story. Prometheus Questions? A lot of people were unnecessarily confused by Prometheus. So I might begin by going over a couple of the so-called […]

Jodie Whittaker as Doctor Who?

Aractus 18, July, 2017

I see that there’s a lot of discussion about the 13th Doctor’s casting. Much of it is focused on whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea to cast a woman in the role. As usual I’m here to address the questions that no one else will. Paul McGann nailed the role. And not […]

The future of the web is ad-free

Aractus 29, June, 2017

Your future and my future are certainly ad-free. We use uBlock Origin and the MVPS hosts file. I’m about to tell you what all those people on Youtube and other places have missed, when they cry foul of adblockers, or put up anti-adblock messages. Are you ready? It used to be that only the tech-savvy […]

Time for a new Doctor Who

Aractus 26, June, 2017

And I don’t mean the actor. I mean the show runner. There were some things about Russell T that I didn’t like, but overall he did a much better job than Steven Moffat. And I’m going to explain in detail why Moffat goes wrong. Firstly, he fails time and time again to build genuine mystery […]

So-called “talent” and “competition” shows

Aractus 19, June, 2017

Pink tribute artist Zoe Alexander on X-Factor UK Auditions: What a train wreck? Well no. It wasn’t, let me explain what happened here. The “audition shows” on these talent shows are not the real audition, the real audition happens weeks or months beforehand. People go and appear before producers, and the producers decide who is […]