I’m not one to blindly believe corporate propaganda, but Telstra’s latest promotion pointing out they have better mobile coverage certainly rings true for me and my (now almost due for an upgrade) GSM (2G) phone. While I’m not much of a wireless data user like the people in the adverts, it’s pretty obvious just with ... [More]
Category: Geek
Technology fetishism
It’s time for a clearout. Here’s a bunch of posts I wrote but never got around to posting. In some cases I intended to research them a bit more before publishing, so beware they may be a little half-arsed. Backwards There were claims and counter-claims during the Kororoit byelection campaign (June 2008). I suppose Les ... [More]
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Predictive text
I love my mobile phone’s predictive text. It makes writing messages quite fast, considering the tiny keyboard. But it seems some people don’t know this: if it comes up with a word that you don’t want, you press * to look at alternatives from its dictionary. If you don’t find the one you want, you ... [More]
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Messy web sites
Leader Newspapers have joined ABC Local Radio in redesigning their web site into a hideous, difficult to navigate mess. For instance, the Caulfield Leader, at www.caulfieldgleneiraleader.com.au, with a page showing the same news stories as the printed version of the paper, plus a few other links, apparently wasn’t good enough. So now it’s the ... [More]
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Large Hadron Collider
Have you seen the pictures of the Large Hadron Collider to be switched on today? Wow. It just looks so sci-fi, doesn’t it. I don’t think it’ll destroy the world, but it almost looks capable of it. (It wasn’t invented by Osterhagen, was it? Oh, whoops — spoilers!) PS. The kids are looking on the ... [More]
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Leaked, sold, or hacked?
One of the things I do (inconsistently) when signing up for things online is to use an email alias specific to the customer I’m signing up to. The theory is that if that email address ever got leaked to spammers, I’d know who leaked it. If you own a domain name, it’s easy to do, ... [More]
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I can see my house from here
As I’m sure everybody’s heard by now, Google launched Streetview for Australia today. My neighbourhood is certainly in there, as are a lot of other Australian cities and towns and regional areas. View Larger Map Cool things I’ve found so far: Puffing Billy at Menzies Creek The Great Ocean Road It’s quiet in St Kilda. ... [More]
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One space, or two?
When typing, do you put one, or two spaces after your full stops? I put one, but it seems like a lot of people put two. I’m not sure why this is, other than a hangover from manual typewriters when it looked better. Or perhaps it’s like the thing where Catholics pronounce H as “haitch”, ... [More]
Spot the disclaimer at the top of the page? It’s because a growing number of journos seem to be finding my blog. Certainly nothing wrong with that; nice to see they’re on the cutting edge, gathering information from far and wide. Welcome, media people from everywhere! But I’ve had to emphasise to them that my ... [More]
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Spam spam spam spam wonderful spam
Judging from the bounces I’m getting from spammers appropriating my email address to use as a Sender, something which is alas unstoppable, the latest trend is to put an unbelievably tabloid subject line on the messages in the hope that people will open them. Or perhaps it’s to try and get through spam defences that ... [More]
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900 emails later
On the 12th of August 1990, I sent out an email. It went to a handful of friends, under the name “Toxic Custard Workshop Files.” It was the first of many, initially made up of (allegedly) humorous writing, though these days it’s mostly the previous week’s blog posts. Tonight, 30th of June 2008, I’m sending ... [More]
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Flashback to fifteen years ago
Fifteen years ago I wore a Seiko wristwatch. It was given to me by my legendary Uncle Kevin (UK in the UK), about a decade before. Fifteen years ago I didn’t carry a camera routinely. I had a 35mm Kodak one that my mum had given to me. I It was heavy, had no zoom, ... [More]