Categories
News and events

The Prime Minister

It’s like writing the wrong year in January. I keep hearing the words “The Prime Minister” on the news and thinking they’re still talking about John Howard. Is it just me? At first glance, I’m impressed with the code of conduct Rudd’s written up.

Categories
Geek / tech Net

Blog stats for this year

I’ve seen Google and Yahoo put out reports on the top search terms of the year, and we’re only a week into December. (Happy Hannukah by the way.) Seems a bit odd to do that before the actual end of the year, but what the hell, I’ll jump on that bandwagon. Here are some stats  ... [More]

Categories
Net

Reference works

I’m in two minds about the kids using Wikipedia as a reference. On the one hand, it’s known to be a generally accurate source of information, with studies showing it can rival the big commercial encyclopaedias such as Britannica. And I love the idea of the information in it being free, helping to spread knowledge  ... [More]

Categories
News and events TV

Snippety snippets

A few brief snippets: Okay, so it’s December now. And I’ve sent precisely zero Christmas cards. Really should get into action, shouldn’t I — I’ve already got some from overseas. Who Do You Think You Are with Stephen Fry on Sunday night was gripping, fascinating, poignant television. Looking forward to the rest of the episodes.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

It doesn’t really help

Andrew blogged on this subject on Friday, so I though I’d jump in too. The Pakenham bypass ($242 million) opened over the weekend, and is already expected to cause traffic problems further south. The Tulla-Calder interchange ($150 million) is almost finished — which may be why it’s still showing red on the Vicroads Travel Time  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism News and events

World AIDS Day

Call me slow, but I didn’t know until I spotted the ribbon-sellers in Collins St this morning that it’s World AIDS Day today. There are various causes out there with varying degrees of deservedness (is there a better word to use there?). Some of those that put highway collectors out on weekends in particular I’ve  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech

Turn on your feeds (again)

<geekyPost> A couple of years ago I wrote a post encouraging people with blogs to make sure their RSS feeds were turned on. I thought I might just repeat it now. RSS helps people like me who have little time to go to one place to catch up on all the blogs we like to  ... [More]

Categories
Melbourne

Important convoy

Forgot to post these photos from last weekend. Or was it the weekend before? Footscray Road, Saturday afternoon, an important convoy came through. With escort cars, flashing lights, the full works. They seemed to be heading west, last seen heading along Ballarat Road, rather than towards the North Pole. Maybe Santa’s got a local distribution  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

My filing system

I have a filing system which works well on computers, but is hopeless for real life. Everything goes into a big pile. It’s the GMail principle. In GMail you archive everything in a big “pile”, then search for it later when you need to find it again. On my work email, I now do the  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism

Final word for now

Final word for now about the election. There was much discussion with friends on Saturday about the perils of who to put last — particularly in the Senate, where every man and his dog was in the race, including parties nobody had ever heard of before. Do you put the racists last? Or the nutbags?  ... [More]

Categories
TV

Election notes

I got my sausage at the polling place sausage sizzle, so I was happy. There seemed to be a few wedding parties about during the afternoon. I guess they’d managed to find church halls that weren’t being used for polling. (One wedding party on the steps of St Paul’s in Bentleigh were memorably sipping from  ... [More]

Categories
Doctor Who

RIP Verity Lambert, 1935-2007

“My father Sydney was a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was – well, she was a nurse, actually.” — John Smith/The Doctor, in the episode Human Nature, 2007. For all you did, thank you, Verity.

Categories
Politics and activism

One more thing…

…before election day. I really liked the Kevin Rudd interviewing himself clip, but I think I like this one even better. Very funny stuff.

Categories
Politics and activism

The election looms

Oh, nice. That treacherous Liberal Party has turned Glen Waverley into a suburb of Beijing and instigated the genocide destruction of our white Australian identity. Vote 1 Neil Henry Smith One Nation to enforce a 100 years moratorium on coloured immigration. — One Nation candidate for Bruce’s pamphlet, as quoted in The Monash Journal. (via  ... [More]

Categories
News and events

Who is Madeleine?

Anybody else spot this long column advert on page 8 of The Age today? I wonder who wrote it, and if things went to plan and Madeleine read it this morning over breakfast? Intriguing.

Categories
Going green Politics and activism

Energy efficiency

So after pondering how heat-efficient my house is (at least for summer), and my water consumption, I was thinking about the rest of my energy use. Since I don’t have air con, I’m hoping the house is fairly efficient, despite heavy use of two computers. Recent bills show usage at around 8-10 kilowatt hours per  ... [More]