Categories
Photos

Just another brick in the wall

From Rod and Christine’s place, near Trentham.

Categories
PTUA

PTUA turns 30

Categories
News and events Retrospectives

Top fear

A survey says Australian children’s top fears are car accidents, bombs, burglars and terrorists. Some of us were talking on Saturday night about our fears when we were growing up in the early 80s. For many it was the fear of nuclear war. I remember lying awake at night thinking about it. Glad I was  ... [More]

Categories
Travel

European holiday

My camera’s gone on holiday. At the moment it’s flying to Europe via Singapore, for some time in England, Ireland and Italy. Just for a fortnight or so. Alas I’m not going with it. I lent it to Justine, whose camera has mysteriously disappeared. So if you’re travelling in Europe in the next couple of  ... [More]

Categories
music TV

Rick Turk’s greatest hits

Occasionally on a Saturday night just before seven, I’ll be slumped in front of the telly, flicking from SBS over to the ABC to keep up my quota of TV news (which is somewhat lacking during the week). I’ll see the end of Gardening Australia, and ponder its tiddily-pom blandly inoffensive music, which conveys pretty  ... [More]

Categories
books Geek / tech

The Long Tail

The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson — Technology has made it cheaper to produce and store and sell many things. So niché products that never would have been viable before are now big business. That’s the premise. If that’s all you want to know, you don’t really need to read this book. At a pinch,  ... [More]

Categories
Geek / tech Working life

Out of control Inboxes

My three main Inboxes are getting out of control. While I manage to reply in a reasonable manner to most of the email I get that’s directed to me personally, I tend to get very slack at filing things away or deleting them, perhaps partly because I think at some stage I’ll need to find  ... [More]

Categories
Clothes

Brown is the new blue

In an amusing conversation the other week: 25 is the new 18. 36 is the new 25. Cycling is the new golf. Dunno if all this is really true, but I’m discovering for myself that brown is the new blue. There was a stage in my life when I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing brown.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Ewww

Mr woolly jumper, what makes you think it is acceptable to floss your teeth on the train? Gross-a-rama.

Categories
dreams Geek / tech

Coding dream

I had a dream the other night that I was in a code review with some of the guys. For non-geeks amongst you, one of the key things about programming is to write your code in such a way that anybody else who reads it can understand how it works… and indeed so that you  ... [More]

Categories
Friends and loved ones music Retrospectives

Young Years

Marita was reminding me on Saturday of Dragon’s song Young Years (a discussion of various music lyrics that culminated in my car gaining the nickname Black Betty). Secret meetings at the river’s bend Simple days when I called you friend Came a time, we went separate ways — Dragon, Young Years As it happens last  ... [More]

Categories
Home life

Cool things in my house #27

High up in the bathroom is this: a towel rack. The lettering? NSWR. I’m guessing it’s a recycled luggage rack from a train up north. Cool looking, and functional too.

Categories
News and events

Pluto aka Asteroid 134340

The grade 5 kids at the school were busy earlier this term building models of the solar system. Like many, Isaac’s was based on a spare hoola hoop, with planets of various sizes and colours hanging off it by fishing-wire. Most of the models came home a few weeks ago, but the best were called  ... [More]

Categories
News and events

No connection

Well there we go. A US senate report says there was no connection between Iraq and Al Queda prior to the war starting. I can’t say I’m surprised. I haven’t changed my view: Saddam is a evil git, but there is no ongoing campaign to oust evil gits, so why was he special? There are  ... [More]

Categories
Sport

Tipping

It hasn’t been a spectacular year for me in the footy tipping. Although I was thankfully nowhere near the come bottom of the competition, after leading for a short period during the year I ended up fifth at the end of the season, three points off the lead. That formidable trophy won’t be coming to  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism

Rosa

Rosa Lee Long, Queensland’s only sitting One Nation MP, was returned in her seat of Tablelands in the Queensland state election on Saturday. I only mention this because she’s actually a distant (non-blood) relative of mine. On the Chinese side of my family there are a mass of Lee Long family members, and I understand  ... [More]