Technology fetishism
My friend Greg is on a quest to become an evil genius. He spotted an abandoned missile base for sale on ebay, and is trying to raise the money to buy it. He writes: “People have donated to help some ditz pay off her credit cards, some kid go to college, some stripper get breast ... [More]
Cameron Reilly’s done a podcast followup to his Age article encouraging people to “get off the bench”. Listening to it reminded me of something I once wrote: “Every person has the potential to create a great work of art; to work for the benefit of humanity; to become a spokesman or a great leader; to ... [More]
I used to be such a fast typist. From memory, in uni I could top 80 wpm. I seem to be slowing down, or at least, my accuracy has dropped. I’m not sure if it’s due to a. getting old b. the crap keyboard I have at work, which periodically seems to ignore what I ... [More]
From the Daniel’s been playing around with web stuff in his copious spare time and trying to learn PHP and here’s a blatant plug department: You know how sometimes you go to the cinema and you can’t remember which membership card you need to show to get the discount? Is it the RACV card? Or ... [More]
Ah, it’s the long weekend… perfect for sleeping in, reading the paper, lazing around the house and… updating your blog. I’m doing some tweaks, to upgrade the software (to get anti-spam filters working properly; you should see the amount of comment spam I get), fiddle with the template etc. So if you notice it looking ... [More]
Yesterday afternoon, reminiscing at ACMI’s Hits of the 80s video game exhibit — free at Melbourne’s Federation Square until May. While most of the games were running on Spectrum or C64 emulators, this copy of Way Of The Exploding Fist was running on a genuine machine. And just as it was back then, one of ... [More]
In Christmassy terms, I had a very successful couple of days — on Friday I managed to get my Christmas cards (and annual letter) to UK relatives into the mail. I’ve gradually reduced the number of cards I send every year as more people get email. I’ll do some kind of email card in the ... [More]
The innanet connection was down this morning. It put something of a dampner on the morning’s blog/check news/check email/check blog comments activity I’ve become used to. Having had either cable or ADSL for some years now, it’s always a rude shock when this happens, a bit like getting no signal on the television. And it’s ... [More]
So I was waiting for a train, while reading the geek history “On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore” (which — in my humble geeky opinion — really is excellent). The station host lady looked at it, and (given its lovely hardback binding and olde booke looke when it’s out of its ... [More]
Are email and PDF putting couriers out of business? When I first worked in the city in the early-90s, there were heaps of bike couriers around the place. You’d see them speeding around the streets, grabbing hold of trams and trucks to go up hills, zooming through lights, dodging pedestrians and cars alike. Back then ... [More]
Cam of TPN is off to America to make his fortune, and his latest podcast is a “Goodbye Australia” edition. But what I found really interesting about it is him talking about the (metaphorical) journey — how he’s got into this position, and how successful people work: meeting people, making contacts, helping those contacts when ... [More]
The great thing about having a long-running blog is I can type almost any word into “Search the diary” box over on the right hand margin, and find posts about it, sparking memories aplenty — sometimes even memories that are amusing or thought-provoking. Some enjoyable posts I re-discovered yesterday: 28 Dec 2004: What’s changed (Since ... [More]