athousandthings

knitting

2008-05-11T07:55:00.002+10:00

Yesterday I made some astro turf out of a green plastic bag. It's a very tiny square of fake grass.

Today I'm trying to resuscitate my blogger and flickr accounts and get stuff joined up. I'll see how I go. Maybe I'll be able to post a picture of my knitting.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

2006-10-18T21:07:00.000+10:00

Matthew gave me the latest George Saunders book, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. It's a novella, or possibly more correctly, an allegory. It's very cool, and very odd, and yes frightening. There is, however, no satisfying end, or particular point, to the lesson. Not that I could see. Perhaps the point is that it's very difficult to get it right, that there is no conceivable way of not getting it wrong yet again.

The book also includes In Persuasion Nation. A set of short stories which could be renamed The Long and Appalling Reign of Market Forces. These stories are great, and very, very frightening. They're about the world slightly on from now, but scarily close. A grandfather wants to take his grandchild to see a play but is forced to watch a series of ads for "Personal Preferences" on the way to and from the theatre, downtrodden characters from a series of advertisements rise up in revolt, young people are brought up as an in-house focus group. All very peculiar, but too close to the bone.

Steve Irwin: national hero

2006-09-04T20:24:00.000+10:00

Steve Irwin died today after being stabbed in the chest by a stingray.

The news started off reasonable size with a top of the page article on smh.com.au, but by the time I was going home from work the story had stretched to a banner image of Steve and a goanna across most of the page, and now there's 3 articles and video, photos, a pop-up location map, and a link to "Your Say: Vale Steve Irwin".

Or not.

The last time I remember such a huge spread across the SMH site was September 11.

So I guess Steve passing is an important event. Or not.

2nd half

2006-08-18T20:14:00.000+10:00

On Monday I turned 42. Houston sent me a congratulatory email, which was supposed to have a link. He forgot the link, but when I asked him about it, he sent me this: OK Go - on treadmills.

It's a great present, and remarkably apposite. For the last year I've worked with a group of people, the majority of whom are at least 10 years younger than me. They go to the gym, they work out at home. We're research nerds and yet there's this body culture thing going on. So for my birthday I asked for, and got, an exercise ball, and some weights. Am I suddenly going to become glamorous? I'm certainly not going to get younger.

Houston's link is the only cultural present I got this year.

I'm trying to balance this all out by reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch which I got for my birthday back in 1985. I didn't read it back then, I got through the first couple of pages and gave up. Now it's easier somehow, and the density is gripping rather than repulsive.

64.29% vote for Aeroplane Jelly song

2006-07-11T21:00:00.000+10:00

Matthew in Sydney ran a survey amongst his friends, of which I am one, and the results showed that:

64.29% of people ARE in favour of changing the national anthem from the bloody boring Advance Australia Bloody Fair to the Aeroplane Jelly song! This must be the best survey result ever!

Too bloody right!

a grocer in kensal town

2006-07-05T19:35:00.000+10:00

I've been investigating my mother's mother's family history.

On Monday I found out via the 1901 Census that my great-grandparents had a grocery shop in Kensal Town, on Southam St.

Today, using a really old copy of the A to Z, and Google Maps, and flickr, I found some indications of what the place looks like now.

Southam St, Kensal Town on Google Maps Southam is the street between Adair and Golborne.
Kensal Town photos on flickr
Booth Poverty Map Charles Booth did a survey of the 'life and labour of the people in London, the Poverty Map is from 1898-1899.

turquoise chair party

2006-05-17T22:19:00.000+10:00

DSC00116
Originally uploaded by flotson.

I love this photo. It's like the aftermath of a party for turquoise chairs: they all came and got trashed, and there was no-one left to make sure they got home safely so they all had to stay . . . and they woke up in the morning, dishevelled, and it'd been raining, and someone had set fire to the ground, which made it very dirty, so they all dozed off again . . .

most overrated virtue

2006-05-16T21:32:00.000+10:00

Cass emailed today. And called this evening. Seeing as we haven't spoken in about 2 months (my fault I failed to respond to a phone message) we talked for about 2 hours on the phone. We conversed on many subjects amongst them

parents who almost cut their fingers off
ontology
ethics and business managers
attention deficit disorder
children under 3 watching tv, and how they shouldn't because it interfers with their synapses
what men eat when women aren't at home
myspace is ugly
the unbelievable little pieces of James Frey

We also got onto Proust's Questions. Running through the list I asked Cass "What do you consider the most overrated virtue?" which meant we had to find a list of virtues. Cass decided that the most overrated virtue is cleanliness.

Then we started looking at vices. If you can define a vice as the opposite of a virtue, then probably the most overrated vice is dirtiness. We also decided that several of the virtues could become vices, eg diligence, or flexibility, or tact even. Perhaps anything taken to an extreme is vicious.

exactly three years before ...

2006-05-08T20:41:00.000+10:00

exactly three years before ...
Originally uploaded by _elinor.

there's not much in the papers about Grant McLennan, so I've been looking around flickr, and of course, people remember him and mourn him.

The Go-Betweens' music was a sound track for part of my life, and their lyrics stick in my head:

when a woman learns to walk, she's not dependent anymore
a line from her letter May 24

from Bye Bye Pride.

GW McLennan

2006-05-07T19:43:00.000+10:00

Grant McLennan died yesterday, 6 May 2006, in Brisbane. Here's the notice on the Go-Between's website.

It's difficult to believe. Like when David McComb died. Gaps that just shouldn't be there.

when the rain hit the roof with the sound of a finished kiss
like a lip lifted from a lip
I took the wrong road round

to-do, or not to-do

2006-05-02T20:55:00.000+10:00

I was just about to post something else, with great enthusiasm and urgency, when I came across this:

To-Do List

It's a blog featuring to-do lists. The person running it actually wants lists. So now I just have to work out which of my fabulously mundane, and exquisitely boring lists I'll send this poor sucker.

Here is today's list:

email & phone Paul re: exit date

email Tania re: website

email Deb - say hello

phone Maged about rates, levies, payment etc

find land tax form

pay rates

put flea stuff on Malfi

You can see that my life is trully scintillating at the moment . . .

the benefits of marriage

2006-04-12T17:52:00.000+10:00

Gina Trapani at scribbling.net has written a post headed "1,049 federal rights depend on marital status". She wrote the post back on October 13, 2004, which will become clear when you read the comments and there are references to the upcoming US election.

The thing is, Adam and Brian have just done the civil ceremony thing in London, but they didn't get to sign the marriage book. So the question remains as they're "not married" will there be any difference in their rights as a couple, compared to a "married" heterosexual couple.

Where does this supremacy of marriage derive from? Do the people getting married, as opposed to those going through a civil ceremony, have any further responsibilities? Are the ceremonies different? What's the story here?

* * *
Further to the above - I'm now looking at The General Register Office website. I'm trying to find the words that people say at Marriages and Civil Partnerships. Under the heading Can we include a ceremony in our civil partnership registration? it says this:

You will have the opportunity to say a set form of words before you sign the schedule.

But it doesn't say what the set form of words is, maybe you can write something out and bring it along, you're just not allowed to launch into extemporary speech. Who knows?

There's nothing about words in the section on civil marriage ceremonies, just this:

Although you cannot incorporate any religious content into a civil marriage ceremony, you may be able to arrange to have individual touches such as non-religious music and/or readings, and for the wedding to be videoed.

Oh, yes the married couple must sign the marriage register rather than 'the schedule'.

minding the gap

2006-04-06T20:32:00.000+10:00

www.gapminder.org has a series of amazing animations of graphs showing economic and statistical trends.

Somewhat remarkably I found out about this at work - one of our directors apparently talked about the software behind the graphs in a recent presentation. (As the presentation was in Canberra, and I was on the phone in any case, I didn't attend.)

good gnod

2006-03-26T16:55:00.000+11:00

Gnod is good, and intriguing. It's an

" . . . experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. Its a self-adapting system, living on this server and 'talking' to everyone who comes along. Gnods intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn 'understanding' its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don't know about."

Effectively Gnod has got three separate strands: books, music and movies. And it's also got a discussion thing Flork. If you are looking for a new author Gnook (the book strand of Gnod) asks you for the names of three authors you like, and it pulls a fourth author out of its hat. Eg I put in Joan Didion, Thomas Mann, and Anthony Powell, and it gave me back Andrea Barrett. I've read and like Andrea Barrett so I clicked on the "I like it!" button, and got another author Ann Pachett, who I'll now have to look up.

finally - Brokeback Mtn

2006-03-07T08:28:00.000+11:00

We went to see Brokeback Mtn last night. It was odd seeing it after everything that everyone has said, difficult to just sit down and watch it as a story, without looking for import and meaning. On the whole I liked it, I didn't get everything that was said, old Ennis' mumble was often impenetrable, in fact I wonder if the script actually had any words at those points, or if there was just direction: Ennis mumbles, 2 sec duration.

This morning I woke up, having done the usual overnight mull, and thought, okay so in this movie there are at least 3 people who know what's going on in the relationship, who see it from 3 totally different points of view, and don't say anything about it. Well, the sheep boss says something, but only to Jack, and after a year's thought on it. You could argue that things go to shit because nobody says anything, Ennis' wife loses him, Jack's father grows older with no-one to take over the ranch. But you could also say that these people had absolutely no structure for talking things through. Ennis hits people when he's angry, or just swallows huge hunks of rage.

When the credits came up I saw that Larry McMurtry had written the script. He also wrote The Last Picture Show, and there are interesting correspondences between the two films. I'll have to watch LPS again, and also reread some E. Annie Proulx. Both Proulx and McMurtry are interested in the decline of the west, in the way farming has changed, and in people's relationship with the land.

the complexities of bush welfare

2006-03-03T07:19:00.000+11:00

I've been thinking, off and on, all week about the complexities of welfare. I've been wondering if the way I've been thinking has been paternal - them and us. As my dad used to say "Who are they?" getting 'us' - my brother and I - to define the other, to define ourselves. I'd been thinking 'they' and 'us', 'they' being Aboriginal people in remote locations, and 'us' being people who make decisions. Yeah right, nice one Lynn. So, I realise that the discussion about welfare for Indigenous people has been brought out into a foreign forum - what do I know about the way that CDEP works? about the needs of people and business in remote and rural areas?

I know a tiny bit, from knowing people that have worked in remote areas, from working for Centrelink. I know enough to know that the issue of welfare and work is incredibly complex.

Okay, so the thing that most shocked me about The Australian's editorial was that Aboriginal people are blamed and called 'indolent' for working within a structure - CDEP - that has been set up for years. That was put in place as a means of getting Aboriginal people to work. It offended me that people that have been doing the 'right' thing by the welfare system are now accused of being lazy.

There hasn't been much more in the news about the issue. The ABC reported on Monday, February 27 that Kimberley MP rejects welfare plan.

The state Member for the Kimberley, in northern Western Australia, has rejected a plan which would block welfare to Aborigines who turn down employment.

The Federal Government has foreshadowed a stricter system, whereby payments would only be directed to those who genuinely cannot work.

The push has come from the Indigenous Land Corporation, which has revealed that 60 per cent of its staff are non-Aboriginal.

But the Member for the Kimberley, Carol Martin, says the Government needs to look at working conditions, instead of refusing the dole.

"Why would you want to go and work somewhere with CDEP [Community Development Employment Projects] with a top up? Why would you?" she said.

"You don't get job security, you don't get the benefits of an award that actually looks after your rights and interests as an employee. As far as I'm concerned, if they operate as a business, they come with the same integrity as other businesses."

This implies that the much vaunted jobs with the Indigneous Land Corporation are not much better than CDEP, are not full-time award wage jobs.

inflammatory editorial

2006-02-24T20:22:00.001+11:00

The Australian published this editorial yesterday Work, not welfare with this lead line No Australian can be allowed to rot in indolence. No, it wasn't about K Packer's corpse, it was about Aboriginal Australians, and the difficulty of finding meaningful work.

Actually, no, it wasn't about that, it was about "hey, let's dump a shit load on people who live on less than the minimum wage in extremely remote communities, because they're never going to read our newspaper, and people that DO read our newspaper will say 'mmm, yes, you're right, it's an outrage! pour me another cup of orange pekoe please dear, and we really should renew our subscription to The Australian, become US citizens, and buy into another very small country so that we don't have to pay any tax to the US or AU.' etc etc so on and so forth".

Just for reference, The Australian also published this Aborigines choose welfare over work by Michael McKenna, and this Business in the bush means the end to the welfare trap by Shirley McPherson on the 22nd of February.

this one's for all you smokers out there . . .

2006-02-21T22:10:00.000+11:00

Fruehstueck
Originally uploaded by Sebastian Wendler.

This morning I started rereading Frank Moorhouse's Forty-Seventeen. It's SO good. The first sentence is:

After lunch over coffee and stregas at Sandro's the poets showed their pens

Super fantastic eh?!

Later in the same story

Australians wrote with the greatest freedom there is - writing without fear of being read.

Just like blogging really.

old geocities blog

2006-02-18T09:35:00.000+11:00

I've been getting emails saying that someone's signed my geocities guestbook. "Don't remember that." I think to myself. Today being Saturday I decided to investigate and found that my old geocities blog is still online: au.geocities.com/athousandthings

It's even got a dream page.

saying "No" to smoking

2006-02-02T18:59:00.000+11:00

I've just come across a website devoted to Youth Smoking Prevention. It's put together by Phillip Morris USA. I came to it via a banner ad on a site for vegetarians - the ad said something about 5 ways for your child to say "no" to smoking. I like way number 1 best

"I was at a party and somebody offered me a cigarette," says Sarah, 14. "I said 'no thanks,' and it was cool. I thought it would be a big deal, but it was so easy."

This always works for me when I'm offered dope, but I'm 41, and really people just offer a joint around to be polite. So they're quite relieved when you wave it away.

The thing that puzzles me about Phillip Morris is - if they're really serious about this, that is, kids not smoking, then they'd have to be phasing out their tobacco production and cigarette manufacturing capabilities and phasing in something else . . . and I wonder what that is?

It's all somewhat bizarre given that I was looking at a recipe for eggplant sandwiches, and at least two of the vegetarians I know smoke, and don't like eggplant much . . . I guess Phillip Morris USA would say that they are its target market " . . . products intended for adults." Maybe Phillip Morris USA doesn't like eggplant either.

one of . . .

2006-01-18T22:12:00.000+11:00

760b.jpg
Originally uploaded by keaggy.

. . . the Unspectacular Doors of St Louis

beautiful photographs of unsuspecting doors, doors which seem to have been abandoned long since

gravestone

2006-01-13T08:35:00.000+11:00

honouring Lynn 1
Originally uploaded by Cos.

Cos took this picture, maybe on the Stura river in Italy. I like it. The figure trapped inside the gravestone shape trying to get out.

Reminds me, indirectly, of the Elvis Costello lyric - "living a life which is almost like suicide". Not sure which song that's from but I'm pretty sure it's from the 1980 album "Get Happy!!" which I bought from the record shop which used to be in the middle of Town Hall station. Can't remember what the shop was called, I'll have to ask Deborah or the other DT.

contributing to wikipedia

2006-01-10T08:23:00.000+11:00

I've decided I'm going to start contributing to wikipedia. It's such a cool thing, an active encyclopedia, with links. I want to start with the William Sharp Macleay entry - he was a very interesting figure - he was a junior diplomat in Paris after the defeat of Napoleon, he was a judge in Cuba on the Mixed British and Spanish Court of Commission for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, he collected plants and insects, he came to Australia to visit his family and ended up living as a recluse in Elizabeth Bay House. His life links with the main events of the early 19th Century. He's perfect for Wikipedia.

really know you're alive

2006-01-08T08:43:00.000+11:00

The Improvised Empathetic Device - a US soldier dies in Iraq, you get a needle stab in the arm.

(via Matt's list at del.icio.us)

a regulated life

2006-01-08T07:31:00.000+11:00

This morning I dreamt I was living "on Her Majesty's Pleasure", ie I was in gaol. It was an odd kind of gaol, men and women, no bars, cages or panopticon, just a suburban bush setting, and trips in mini-buses. But it was a gaol never the less. I had to be there, I wasn't earning a wage, I had to participate in the group - looking after small animals, doing some bush regeneration.

I woke up and thought vaguely "that's pretty much like my life now". I do things because they've been set up that way - go to work, do my job and interact with people there, come home, eat, sleep, pay bills with the money I've earnt at work, walk the dog, on Saturdays go and do the photocopying for church, on Sundays go to church. Nothing is very surprising. Nothing much is happening. My relationships with people seem to have stalled . . .

How do I make things happen? or, How do things happen?

I've just finished reading Haurki Murakami's "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" - it starts out with a man looking for his lost cat, and it goes on from there. One thing happens after another. The book seems to be about life and fate, trying to take action while you are bound up by circumstance. It also touches on the power one person can have over another, or many others. And methods for avoiding that power, trying to side-step, slip out from, a grasp.

obsession

2006-01-06T08:39:00.000+11:00

This morning reading about good and bad procrastination (found it via del.icio.us). The article is more about doing the main thing, being focused on the big, important things. It's not really about procrastination at all. The author, Paul Graham, refers to the article about you and your research that I also found via del.icio.us, and bookmarked . . .

So I've been thinking about this, this urging to do the big thing, to look for the important questions and try and solve them. And I've been thinking about the discussion with Dan about obsession, thinking that maybe it is men that can afford to be
obsessed because other people do things for them, eg cooking, cleaning, washing, paying the bills and so on

Thinking that it's difficult for me to work in this house, because the computer is in the dining room cum kitchen cum living room, so people can see what I'm doing, or not doing. And to get around that I have to mentally seal myself off, put up a conscious barrier between myself and what is going on around, the sound of a spoon in a cereal bowl for example. Always, unless I get up at 5:30 am, which I could, I suppose.

Here, just for interests sake, is part of Dan's rave about death metal drummers:

D N /... If you go to www.georgekollias.com there's some great stuff there; clips of him warming up and playing at clinics and stuff.
D N /... There's also (naturally) a www.tonylaureano.com and a
www.derekroddy.com - incidentally, Derek Roddy was committed to Hate Eternal and couldn't rejoin Nile.
D N /... And for a more jazzy, loose, headspinningly fast
approach, check out Cryptopsy's drummer; www.flomounier.com
(they're from Montreal).
L C/... okay, so I've checked out George, he's got long hair too . . . must be just like you and Tim C
D N/... This is all total drumnerd stuff, of course; if you're
not interested in the finer points of bomb blasts, it might all
be a bit too detailed.
D N /... Wow, I can't believe we have access!
D N /... Another wunderkind is www.timyeung.com who was Hate Eternal's first drummer (and was nicknamed "The Missile" in the credits of their first album).
D N /... On their second, when Derek Roddy took over, he was
nicknamed "One Take".

You see what I mean about obsession?

the way we do the web

2006-01-03T07:54:00.000+11:00

Reading 10 Web Trends That Should Die in 2006 I got to point 6: "Let's do a traditional homepage for our company" and I started thinking about Monkey Baa.

I tried last year to get them to ditch "the egg" ie the graphic index page, but they love it too much. And why did I want to get rid of it? because it's declasse? daggy? makes me look like a bad web designer? probably, in fact, yes, those would be the reasons. But I didn't come up with anything simple and warm to replace it. And if I made a blog style homepage for Monkey Baa with offers of RSS feeds and updates it'd stay the same way for the whole year . . . and I'd be the one updating it anyway. Maybe very small companies, people that want to offer some information on the web are allowed to have a "traditional" web presence.

After thinking about this for a bit I went on to read some of this: the cluetrain manifesto

It's interesting, (once you get past the line "Markets are conversations"), worth discussing, but who would I be discussing it with? It started me thinking about the ABS and its approach to the web. Very old school. Very unwieldy. But about to change.

The question for me is "what are people doing when they access the web?" When a punter goes to the ABS they may be looking for some stats, but they might also be looking for an idea of what's being researched across Australia, what other people and organisations are doing with figures and facts, what's being enumerated and why. Very interesting.

in/out 2006

2005-12-29T08:22:00.000+11:00

Several people - Cade, Sandie, Matthew - are keen to get a 2006 in/out list going."Yes, indeed!" I said, "I will set something up." So this is the first step in the garnering of opinion of what will be IN and OUT in 2006.

For a bit of background to the whole in/out list thing see this: in/out 2004 and this: in/out 2005.

Here's my list to start off:

IN: humility, good, thoughtful action, complex carbohydrates, leafy greens, olives, meat and fish as a garnish (if you're an omnivore that is), good humour, silliness, doubt

OUT: arrogance, evil, violence, meat as a meal, drinking as entertainment, bad moods, blinkered pragmatism

If you could leave your lists as a comment to this post, I might organise them beautifully in the New Year.

peculiar resolution to internal crisis

2005-12-19T18:24:00.000+11:00

Saturday night we went to Maryam's party in Matt's studio. Not surprisingly 'hundreds' of people were there from my past. People from UNSW, people from Adelaide. People I'd been madly in love with, people who'd witnessed me acting the fool. Michael of course.

It was like a strange timeline of decisions and impulses.

Talking with Michael was, oddly, a relief. He seems so much the same - he'd smashed the bones in his ankle somehow and was wearing a plaster cast. He didn't hear his mobile phone ringing despite me asking "what's that noise?". After Friday and getting upset about the past, thinking about the whole Alexandria thing, people moving, people being dissatisfied with the way that their lives had played out, it seemed to make sense that he is moving again, and taking his pregnant wife, and his mother to live in Newcastle-on-Tyne. It's just another step in that whole process of change, and movement and being. And it is what he is doing now. That's him.

I felt able to separate myself and what I am doing from these other people. Interested but not involved. Good.

And Matt's studio is so cool - a house with sheds opening onto a courtyard - in Camperdown. Perfect. It gave me hope that we can find a place to live that will have enough room to make things without having to move to the Blue Mountains, or Liverpool, or some other arse end.

alexandria

2005-12-16T18:15:00.000+11:00

Today at work, in written communication, I used the word "formidable" and qualified it with the explanation that it should be said with a french accent. Which lead to a discussion of hearing french spoken around the table, at home, with family. Which lead to the discovery that Dan's father's family had lived in Alexandria, as, of course, had Michael and his family.

All of this made me feel strangely sad, and at lunch I went outside and ate my bread and cried.

I remember . . .

2005-12-14T21:45:00.000+11:00

I remember being at Elouera or Wanda with Vicki and Lindy's grandpa, Mr Evans, and him teaching us to swim in the surf. He taught us how to swim out of a rip, sideways, doing breast stroke.

I remember going down in the late afternoon with Dad in the Valiant, parking up on top of the cliffs and going down into the sea. Dad taught me to look out, to the sea, to watch the waves coming, to stand and then start swimming, to be caught up by the pull backwards, the slight pull, then swim forwards, becoming a part of the roll, the onwards force.

I remember as a very small child standing on the rocks beside one of the pools, maybe at Shelley Beach, being offered some sort of sea things, abalone or sea urchins by a man, maybe Greek or Italian. My father disappointed that I didn't take any, he wanted to know what those things were like.

Cronulla - backdated

2005-12-14T21:39:00.000+11:00

I wrote this on Monday, when I got into work:

On the train this morning I saw the cover of the paper, the herald, I can't remember the headline, something about riots, and youth out for revenge. The photo took up the whole front page, so all I could see were the white arms and I thought where is that? surely not France again, that didn't make the front page before. Then I came into work and checked out the herald and
it is at Cronulla.

I am astounded, in some ways, and not overly surprised in others, not when I think about it and what life was like when I was young. The different groups of people, older surfers, younger surfers, chicks just lying in the sun, people walking to the beach, or catching the train, or driving down. Being part of things, there was no trouble for me, because I was careful (I suppose). Later when Peter lived there he would complain about the traffic on the weekend.

I don't know about violence.

Maybe underneath it all. The security guards in the plaza, and the closed circuit camera, and Peter getting knocked down in the street. Groups, and aggravation.

raining

2005-11-26T08:24:00.000+11:00

it's raining today and it's Saturday today and the rain is a good thing because I can stay inside and get things done, computer things, getting on with jobs for people, and cleaning out my inbox, and catching up with people, and outside the cane begonias are glowing pink and dark green, and it is all good

fabulous car eh!?

2005-11-19T22:17:00.000+11:00

Originally uploaded by bonytony.

someone took a photo of the Poobus during the Newtown Festival and posted it to flickr . . .

misuse of technology

2005-11-07T09:06:00.000+11:00

Someone just sent a text to my home phone. This is weird and stupid on a number of levels.

Firstly the phone had to read the text to me, and that sounds very odd.

Secondly the text was from someone who was running late, and wouldn't get here until 10:25. But I don't have an appointment with anyone this morning, so, it's a wrong number. But because the person has texted instead of called, I'd have to call them back to let them know that they're letting the wrong person know that they're going to be late, and the right person won't know that they're late and will, potentially, be angry at them when they do arrive.

Thirdly for me to call the person back I'd have to really quickly write down their phone number from the message, then call them and so waste money my end.

So really they should've just phoned the person rather than texting.

brother discussion sold born none

2005-11-03T21:37:00.000+11:00

This is fantastic! Wordcount It's a program that takes the 86,600 most used words in English and ranks them. So I put in "brother" and it comes up at 1,215 followed by "discussion" at 1,216 etc . . . cool in a very peculiar kind of way.

I've just tried with "sister", it comes in at 1,389 followed by grant, smile, instead, justice . . . "friend" is at 572, followed by decisions, countries, expected . . . how "odd" (no. 2255 pension, warning, advertising)

low level terror

2005-11-03T21:28:00.000+11:00

Today there was a low level terror threat for Town Hall station. It was all set to go off at 5:02pm, but didn't. Because it was a hoax. Or, in all-round-relaxed-and-comfortable-alert-but-not-alarmed speak it was a "low level terror threat".

Paul the guy who is usually on reception raced off to the station at about 4:55pm saying "I've got to get the train, it'll be great, there won't be anyone on it so I'll get a seat!" A couple of weeks ago he also said, when he was training me to fill in on reception and switchboard "If you get a real bomb threat . . ." with me left thinking "How many bomb threats do we get a week that you can tell what's real and what's just fooling about?"

product placement

2005-11-01T22:02:00.000+11:00

This morning as I came out of the turnstile at Town Hall station I noticed two people in corporate t-shirts next to a big stand advertising the Cross City Tunnel. (You can use it for free for the next 3 weeks! Wow!!)

This struck me as stupid for two reasons:

they were talking to people who use public transport, not drivers
we were all getting off the train in the middle of the city, not on either side of the city

They'd be better off advertising to commuters on Parramatta Road, or at Bondi Junction. Or, we'd all be better off if they made trains and buses free for three weeks. Think of that!

truffles

2005-10-17T21:57:00.000+10:00

PA140039 - small
Originally uploaded by Cos.

Cos wrote a really lovely email about these truffles. Here's his and Franca's description of their scent:

. . . they have a rather odd perfume. Initial guesses always liken it to gas…but after sniffing it for a bit longer you get all sorts of images popping in to mind. Franca says it smells like the forest in autumn, with ochre coloured leaves falling and a brisk wind smarting your cheeks (her words…but in italian). It is a rather heady perfume that is very, very light but extremely pervasive. I had it on my work desk and you couldn’t smell it directly, but if you didn’t concentrate on the smell (like when you’re working on the computer) it is so strong that it makes you dizzy. It is a difficult perfume to describe. It isn’t spicy, nor musky, nor is it a peppery smell, neither damp/mould nor mushroomy smell,….but at the same time it is all of those. I had it in my pocket last night when I went by the baker, it was wrapped in paper and tied up in a plastic bag, and after a little while the people waiting began to stir a bit than someone said ‘…does anyone else smell truffle’

Lovely!

ironic democracy

2005-10-16T19:59:00.000+10:00

While Australian troops are still in Iraq supporting the movement towards 'democracy' - here, back in Australia, legislation is being proposed which will make dissent illegal, which will allow the government to detain people without charge or trial, which will inflict prison sentences upon those who reveal that they have been held, without charge and without trial, to their employers or their families.

It's ludicrous. It's my worst nightmare. I currently enjoy living in a country where the law is explicit, where I know what I can and can't do. I really, REALLY like this. It enables me to act sensibly and in accord with those around me. However, if the law is changed - if I can be held under suspicion, without reason, and I'm not allowed to tell anyone what is going on - for me this is chaos. This is hell. I suppose the legislators would argue that I am not likely to fall under suspicion, or get picked up, or do the wrong thing. But if you don't know for sure what the wrong thing is, how can you avoid it?

Where do my sympathies lie? With those who ask questions, with those who upset the status quo, with those who push boundaries, testing what is really necessary. I guess it's not going to kill me if I end up being held without charge for a fortnight, or having my movements restricted for a year. It's just not that likely that it would happen to me. It's the friggin' principle of the thing that freaks me out - we're in Iraq to establish justice (apparently), and yet we're allowing injustice, fear and secrecy to blossom here. It disgusts me.

cook books

2005-10-08T17:32:00.000+10:00

cook books
Originally uploaded by lynn.

Julie Powell, the author of 'Julie & Julia', wrote a blog while she was working on the cook-your-way-through-'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' project, see here: The Julie/Julia Project

Apparently it all started the day she came home from the gynecologist and cooked Potage Parmentier for tea. I cooked that the other day and it hasn't had any odd effects yet, which might be a good thing, or a bad thing. Depending on what those effects might've been. Bit like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory really, I could've ended up going to Antartica as a cleaner or something. Probably not.

total control

2005-09-26T19:14:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow the Federal and State governments will discuss anti-terrorism laws.

As well as detention of suspects without trial, Mr Howard has asked the states and territories to support a regime of control orders that could see suspects who have never been charged being electronically tagged for periods of 12 months; wider search and seizure powers for ASIO and police; and a new crime of incitement for advocating or supporting terrorist ideology.
SMH, Sept 24 2005, Marian Wilkinson and David Marr

This looks like the state is seeking to totally control citizens' behaviour, if you don't conform you will be removed from the public sphere. If your actions and words, even your support, is conceived of by the state as being a danger to the state you run the risk of first being detained with no reason given for up to 14 days ie exiled internally, then you might be tagged and, by implication tracked, for up to 12 months.

These proposed laws strike me as being totally at odds with healthy public life. How can a person voice thoughts, discuss, question, act, and learn in public if their openness might lead to incarceration? As Matt says, the only way to combat this is for many, many people to voice thoughts, and to act.

see:
I'll back PM's terrorism laws, says Iemma www.smh.com.au, Sept 24 2005, Marian Wilkinson and David Marr
Beazley spells out anti-terror priorities www.abc.net.au, Sept 26 2005

undercover police

2005-09-24T19:24:00.000+10:00

At Sydney Uni this morning there was a message chalked onto the path which runs between the library and the quad, it went something like this:

are you aware that undercover police are targeting activists on campus, 3 students have been arrested in the last 2 weeks

It's rather sinister, the use of the adjective undercover rather than plain clothes suggests police infiltrating student groups. And what kind of police, federal or state? And what were the students arrested for? Normal style crime - drug selling, theft, rape, murder. Or the more difficult to pin down terrorist threat type stuff.

The message left me mildly paranoid. Who would write something so indefinate, and why?

scriptwriting made easy!

2005-09-21T07:50:00.000+10:00

Here's a movie plot I just whipped up:

boom boom
an original screenplay concept
by carmichael
Political thriller: An antisocial loner teams up with the chief of police to discover America. In the process they accidentally kill a super intelligent chimpanzee. By the end of the movie they burn 12 double agents and end up winning the admiration of their co-workers, living happily ever after.
Think Clerks meets kaos.

You too can put together an "original screenplay concept" in about 3 minutes, or less, using Plot-o-matic™.

poems

2005-09-20T07:43:00.000+10:00

a mobile phone
works well to
tell a story short

my friend sent
this a poem
about a tank

cuckoo cuckoo

2005-09-20T07:41:00.000+10:00

Walking through Sydney University this morning we heard a channel billed cuckoo, and a koel for the first time this spring.

how to . . .

2005-09-16T07:25:00.000+10:00

. . . Help a Friend Who Gets Arrested in the Middle of the Night in the US. The basic premise of these instructions is that your Friend Who Gets Arrested is able to contact you. Once they've made contact, you ask them where they're being held, tell them not to talk to anyone until you get them a lawyer, then you tell the police not to talk to them (!), and then you get off the phone and try to find a lawyer. One of the top tips is:

Always keep about $500-$1000 available without having to go to the bank. Most minor crimes and traffic violations can be bailed out from the stationhouse through the use of a desk appearance ticket or a desk sergent's bail.

I think I'd only be keeping that kind of cash available if I was getting regular phone calls from friends who'd got themselves arrested. And if that was happening I'd be having a long hard talk with my friends about their life choices. But I've got to remember that I'm a white and female - I'm sitting happily in the least likely to get arrested demographic grouping. Maybe if I was black and male I'd be keeping the cash around the house after all.

outrage! terror! snub!

2005-09-14T19:44:00.000+10:00

This is funny - FASHIONABLE SYDNEY SET OUTRAGED AT AL QAEDA TERROR THREAT SNUB.

And the outrage is not limited to "fashionable Sydney". I personally felt mildly slighted. All I can say is thank goodness Al Qaeda didn't name Wellington, NZ as a target.

(thankyou to Sandie for the link!)

http://65.39.85.13/google/

2005-09-14T07:37:00.000+10:00

This is amazing http://65.39.85.13/google/. It's an application which gives you a brief demographic report of an area when you click on a point on a map. Two companies SRC and analyGIS have combined Google Maps with data from the US 2000 Census.

The application gives data for 1 mile, 3 mile and 5 mile radii from the point which you click. It's very, very interesting.

able was I ere I saw elba

2005-09-13T20:18:00.000+10:00

We saw Palindromes the other night. Todd Solondz has something to offend everyone in this film, but at the same time it's wonderfully engaging. As Tim pointed out, somehow his films make you have a huge emotional response at the same time as making you think. Watching Palindromes I was constantly thinking "why am I reacting like this? what don't I like about this? what is the structure doing? do I agree or disagree with this position/philosophy/world view?" One of the groovy things about the film was that half way through it went into a Robert Mitcham "Night of the Hunter" thing - very strange. (And one of the Avivas reminded me of a book I read last year that I can't remember the name or the author of. Yes I know very helpful. I'll have to go to the library and pull the book out, surname beginning with L maybe. Ah yes J.T. Leroy's The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.)

In the end I was just really happy that I don't have any children.

On another note - both Adam and Lily have said that they preferred the Gene Wilder version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Whereas Matthew really enjoyed it. I'm re-reading the book and may see the film. If I do, I'll report back.

Bob Roberts and New Orleans

2005-09-10T07:33:00.000+10:00

Last night we watched Bob Roberts on dvd. It's a depressing film to watch now. The US has the second Bush as President and is still engaged in Iraq. Self-interest is still, somehow, good. Caring about other people as well as yourself is, somehow, a form of weakness. We are shown the dishonesty (Bob's foot tapping at the end of the film) and yet we live with it, as Gore Vidal explains - we're frogs being brought slowly to the boil. How do we get out of this position?

This morning I read this: Notes from Inside New Orleans. The writer describes the disorganisation within a refugee camp, the lack of information about where transport out was heading, the lack of any system to record who was in the camp, and where they had been sent on to. It's nightmarish. I imagine people just getting lost. Never getting back to New Orleans, not having the means, or the identification necessary.

MM's MMM

2005-09-01T18:34:00.000+10:00

Over at flickr.com I came across a photoset mysteriously entitled MMM. The photos are of art work RE Huxley has done in an old cook book - the Modern Meal Maker - now called Modern Mixed Media. The art work is super cool, but, of course, because the work is done in a cook book I got very curious and thought what sort of recipes were in this book. So I did a search on the author Martha Meade and came across this: 101 cookbooks - Bacon Popovers in which a person called Heidi cooks Bacon Popovers out of MM's MMM. It's pretty damn good. And her photograph of the popovers looks like it's been styled and planned and previewed on digital before shooting on film for at least 3 weeks, but apparently was shot in 30 seconds. Anyway, it's interesting, it's a good indication of what's in the Modern Meal Maker which was put out by "General Mills to promote the use of their Sperry brand of Drifted Snow 'Home Perfected' Flour, . . ." very, very cool.

Handcastle

2005-08-29T21:04:00.000+10:00

i updated the Handcastle
Originally uploaded by -eti-.

This is very cool - a person has a blog called Handkasteel / handcastle. It's basically pictures of children's drawings on their hands. Nice.

BB-Tim

2005-08-22T19:17:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I think I saw BB-Tim upstairs at the Townie watching St George v The Eels. The bar was almost deserted as it's become non-smoking and the maybe BB-Tim stood out given his suntan and hair.

It's kind've interesting, I've just read the final webchat transcript, here's a couple of the questions:

Foiler: Tim, everyone keeps referring to your time in the house as a sociological experiment - what would you say are your greatest "findings"?
Tim: Childhood family is undoubtedly the most important factor in people's development and that people really can change given the time to concentrate.

and

redkazza: Tim, you changed so much since the start of BB appearance wise, any further changes you might make? PS you look great!
Tim: Yeah, I've got a couple of tattoos planned. Obviously I had to go through a lot of legal issues with local councils getting approval and all that with my tan and my hair, the shaving and the painting of the nails and the muscle building, but changing your body is fun.

So, Tim was able to change into a tanned skin, and hair streaked person given the 'time to concentrate'. I hope he gets more than that out of the whole experience.

miami

2005-08-22T18:47:00.000+10:00

I've been reading (and viewing) around and about Miami. Started out with Joan Didion's Miami originally published by Simon & Schuster in 1987. It's a complicated work, starts out with the place and ends up with Reagan and the contras. Particularly weird to be reading it now after Reagan's death, and the war in Iraq. Moved on to James Ellroy's American Tabloid (Arrow 1995) to keep the Miami and Bay of Pigs, and Kennedy theme going . . . but I gave up on that last night, almost half way through the book. I like the complexity of Ellroy's stories, but find the violence too much, and the characterisations - the smart opportunist, the flawed idealist - kind of wearing. Now I'm back with Didion and The Last Thing He Wanted (Alfred A Knopf 1996). It gets to Miami early on, then moves to an unspecified island somewhere in the Caribbean.

And last night we watched two episodes of Miami Vice on dvd. Nice.

What else could I read? Could back over some Elmore Leonard, and Bashevis Singer. Any other Miami recommendations?

true confessions

2005-08-08T20:43:00.000+10:00

I'm addicted to Big Brother. I haven't watched the show this season, but I've read at least half of the online diary. And Nadia, the winner of last years UK Big Brother has just gone into the Gold Coast Big Brother house:

The intruder alert goes off and Vesna jumps up: "Intruder! I told you!" Greg comments: "Who would that be, that's bulls**t." BB introduces Nadia and Vesna greets her: "Hey Nadia, how are you love?" Tim and Greg introduce themselves and she offers them the champagne. Nadia asks: "Who told you my name?"

Vesna asks: "Are you from Spain?" Nadia explains she's from Portugal but lives in the UK. Tim opens the champagne and pours them a glass each. Nadia explains: "I'm not an intruder. I'm just a special guest." BB diary day 93

Nice and good one Vesna, don't lump the portugese in with the spaniards, and go Nadia for borrowing Melanie's line re: not an intruder, rather a special guest.

train history murals

2005-08-06T18:51:00.000+10:00

Apparently the Devonshire St Tunnel murals (some of which were painted by kids from Caringbah High School) are going to be replaced by murals depicting the history of the railways in New South Wales. Wow! What a relaxing and visually stimulating subject for commuters to engage with!

I think the history of graffiti on railway property in NSW would be far more interesting. We were talking the other day at work about the refurbished Hilton, and the missing plaque to the victims of the Hilton bombing, and the graffiti all over the Illawarra line exhorting us to free the Ananda Marga. Then there were years and years of "Led Zep Lern" penned inside carriages, over and over again, until you wanted Zep to Lern some other phrase.

The current murals have been there a long time, and are a bit worse for wear, but the history of rail strikes terror into my heart - can't we have something colourful and decorative? fun even?

please blow bubbles

2005-08-03T07:37:00.000+10:00

Please blow bubbles for Sonia & Ben
as they walk down the aisle as
Husband and Wife

found this morning outside St John's college, University of Sydney

macdonaldtown station

2005-08-02T07:36:00.000+10:00

macdonaldtown station
Originally uploaded by lynn.

My new job is 9 to 5 and in town, so it's back to catching the train to work. Which is a good thing - I like Macdonaldtown Station.

Here's yesterday's bird list: dove, willie wagtail, 2 x pee wee, magpie, 2 x lorrikeet, pigeon, (and heard only wattle bird, sparrows)

drawing connections

2005-07-03T15:53:00.000+10:00

July is the month for the Sydney Drawing Festival. There are exhibitions and events on all over Sydney - but there doesn't seem to be a website advertising the whole lot. It seems to be an offshoot of the International Drawing Research Institute's annual (?) conference. There's stuff on at the Australian Museum, at the Botanic Gardens, at the Power House Museum, and at various Historic Houses Trust properties.

I've got so used to having a website for everything, and everything in its website that it's quite a challenge to understand an event, or a Festival without that framework.

chrysler valiant ranger

2005-07-01T17:32:00.000+10:00

A couple of weeks ago I went with Joy Lai to the MCA to see an exhibition put together by groups of artists from Sydney, Singapore and Berlin. Joy had been to the opening night and thought it was lots of fun. And it is.

One of the Sydney exhibitors is Simon Barney. His work is called No Ideas. There's a table and some index cards, and you write instructions for a painting on the index card, and if he likes the idea, or instruction, that you've given him, he does the painting, and you get it at the end of the show! How cool! Here's what he says about it:

Participation has lately turned into a mass marketing strategy. It's a vote of some kind, a group decision, at best the chance of choosing between options. It no longer suggests autonomy so much as a kind of averaging to which we are subjected. For each work is instead to be made with one person, for that person. The instructions are a starting point . . . the paintings here in the museum are the work of the artists and visitors who put up the ideas; and they'll each be carrying their artwork out the door, taking it home - if they want to.

Joy and I both put in our ideas, and they're both getting painted.

Joy's instructions were about painting a glacier and putting on cotton wool and rice. My instructions were a kind of description of the car crash that Peter had where he rolled the Valiant coming up the hill out of Cronulla, crashing into the milk truck coming the other way. I wonder what it will look like.

*
Here's a blog which goes with the exhibition: situation

slow reading

2005-06-23T21:23:00.000+10:00

I've been reading Homer's "The Iliad". I've tried to do this before, and have always got stuck, mired down in too many names, and convoluted narrative. This time I'm reading it slowly. I've decided that I'm only allowed one chapter a day. It's good. It makes me take time with it, I listen to myself as I tell the story in my head. And it makes it come alive, I'm struck by the pacing, the repetitions, the skill of the narrator. When Agamemnon says to Odysseus go and tell Achilles "etc etc so on and so forth", Odysseus repeats it word for word, and when Achilles sends a message back it's also repeated in entire.

It's reminded me of "slow reading". A way of approaching philosophical reading developed and put up on the web by Lancelot R Fletcher. He writes:

. . . make the following test: Read a sentence of eight or ten words to a group of students -- to anybody -- and ask them to reproduce the sentence word for word. My experience has been that almost everybody responds by telling what they thought the sentence meant -- in different words, not the same -- and in the process, anything incongruous, perplexing or ambiguous -- anything, in short, which might be an opening for learning to occur -- tends to be disregarded. Obviously this is not a lesson that any of us can claim to have learned sufficiently. We are so preoccupied with deciding what the sentences we read and hear MEAN, and especially with deciding whether WE agree or disagree, whether WE approve or disapprove, that we generally do not pause to take note of what the sentences SAY.

And I think this is why I'm having more success with the Iliad through chapter by chapter reading, I'm actually listening to what is happening, and pausing to make sure I've read (or heard) correctly.

staples

2005-06-23T15:24:00.000+10:00

This year I've been reading the Big Brother diary. Strangely enough it's interesting reading about ordinary people, living a boring and tedious life. Because I'm now reading the diary, I'm paying more attention to the whole deal and have found that a major part of the whole Big Brother thing, besides one person getting voted off every week, are the tasks. The House Mates this year keep betting their whole shopping budget on their tasks, and several times they haven't completed the task to Big Brother's satisfaction, so they lose all their money and have to live on staples. What are "staples" you ask? These things here are one person's allowance of food per day:

Bread making flour - 217g (The HMs bake their own bread)
Yeast - 2.1g
Canola Oil - 20ml
Salt - 6.5g
Raw sugar - 3.3g
Brown rice (raw) - 80g
Chuck or blade steak - 150g
Tinned tomatoes - 200g
Fresh snake beans - 60g
Frozen broccoli and cauliflower - 60g
Frozen carrots - 90g
Cabbage (raw) - 60g
Apple - 1 whole (180g)
Orange - 1 whole (220g)
Banana - 1 large (180g)
Sultanas - 20g
Chick peas (tinned) - 80g
Milk powder - 80g
Tuna - 100g
Rolled oats - 25g

from Big Brother // News : Living on the breadline

It's a strange selection - so much flour! so little rice, and tinned chick peas - urgh. I'll have to weigh some vegetables because 60 g of cabbage or brocolli doesn't seem much to me.

okay, so it works now!

2005-06-11T19:08:00.000+10:00

that's good. somehow or other Blogger had a need for speed, my old connection just wasn't cutting the mustard, but now with adsl / broadband / whatever you like to call it instead of good old dial-up Blogger is blogging again.

Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

2005-06-09T18:36:00.000+10:00

Mum and I went to see the Greek Treasures exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum today. As the exhibition flyer says it's "a diverse exhibition of treasures" from the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece. The objects range from prehistoric bowls and arrow heads up to swords and pistols and powder cases used in the War of Independence.

Mum and I agreed that we are completely ignorant of modern Greek history, Mum observed it's as if history begins for us with Archduke Ferdinand.

The exhibition includes amazingly intricate embroidery as well as the more usual things like sculpture, pottery and metal work. We had a quiet disagreement with another woman about a piece of embroidery, we maintain that the base was very fine linen, embroidered into a grid in places, whereas the other woman thought it was tapestry canvas . . . we moved on to other things.

zebras under glass

2005-06-06T19:19:00.000+10:00

Gallery 4
Originally uploaded by cenz.

The Walter Rothschild Zoological Museum has many animals in glass cases. I wonder if the taxidermist of these zebras choose to represent them sitting down so as to fit more in.

The museum also has a Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, and cenz has a picture of it in this group.

poo

2005-05-25T17:36:00.000+10:00

It’s poo when one of my stated goals is to be a better blogger and for some unknown reason I can’t actually get into Blogger using my eMac and Safari, or my eMac and Explorer.

Do I need to download Firefox?
or
Do I need to do something else that isn’t readily known to me because I can’t get into the Blogger Help files either. It’s all very peculiar.

See more progress on: find out why I can’t access Blogger

sudoko in vic park

2005-05-22T18:16:00.000+10:00

Today I took the dog, and the article about sudoko* to Victoria Park. I was enjoying myself, sitting in the sun, on the grass, doing the puzzle, very nice, very relaxing, talking to the dog from time to time. Lovely. Then along came a male beagle. I thought Malfi was okay with this dog initially. She stood there, didn't back off, didn't bark, then all of a sudden she decided to crawl away from this beagle, over my legs and do a wee at the same time. Nice. So then we went home so that I could change and wash my trousers.

*I can't seem to find the article in the SMH archive. Sudoko is a number puzzle, a 9 x 9 grid, with missing numbers. You've got to put the correct numbers in the blank boxes so that each horizontal line, and each vertical line, as well as each 3 x 3 block has got the numbers 1 to 9 in it. There are some examples here.

to finish is good

2005-05-09T20:51:00.000+10:00

I graduated last week. It was fantastic. Before the graduation I was depressed about the whole experience, thinking what a waste of time it had been (in terms of bettering myself financially, and getting on with a career) but the day was cool. A friend and I had made a pact to go to the ceremony together, because we’d both found it so hard to get through, and another friend came and took photos of us, and my Mum came, and we all went out for yum cha afterwards. So it was good in that I realised that I’d a) made very good friends through doing the degree, and b) I’d actually finished something, besides all of the academic things like learning to focus, and think critically, and discuss etc etc etc
So yes, it’s a good thing to finish a degree.

See more progress on: finish my degree

doing, and not doing, stuff online

2005-03-27T20:54:00.000+10:00

All things Bru has an interesting post about blogging, and doing stuff online:

I recognize several different levels of commitment and matching satisfaction: chatting (almost no trace is left of what you're saying, the conversation is limited to synchronous consumption) , newsreading, (social) bookmarking (that is posting reference of an interesting article on a site like del.icio.us or spurl), reblogging (that's the practice of taking an article and republishing it, usually adding a small personal comment), commenting (when actually building on a conversation through personal ideas and opinions), “self-centered” blogging (as in this post), cross-reference blogging (when a post is part of a wider conversation, with references, new ideas, refactoring and so on).

It's something I've been thinking about - mainly because I spend so much time reading stuff online while I'm at work, but don't feel that I can concentrate enough to synthesize what I'm reading and put it into a blog post. So I end up, if I'm disciplined, with a whole lot of notes, and sometimes bookmarks at del.icio.us, and never come back to write through and post what I've been looking at.

flickr and yahoo!

2005-03-22T18:33:00.000+11:00

flickr has been acquired / bought / snapped up by Yahoo!

The announcement from flickr indicated that things will not change, but I have a heavy feeling in my stomach about this, which interestingly I didn't have when Blogger announced it was being taken over by Google. I think this is because Yahoo! has, to my eyes, a messy and unattractive site with way too much on it, whereas Google is always neat and clean with the minimum of extra guff.

I hope that Yahoo! doesn't pick apart flickr and incorporate it into what they've already got. Apart from the great photo sharing thing going at flickr is the great idea sharing that goes on, and I love logging in and finding tweaks to the application put in place both by the makers of flickr, and the users.

moral weight

2005-03-15T22:27:00.000+11:00

I keep finding interesting, or quirky, sentences in things I'm reading eg:

One person would find the moral weight of starting a company hard to bear.
from Paul Graham How to Start a Startup

It's an intriguing concept "moral weight", what do I reckon it is? Responsibility? Doing the right thing? Is that so hard? I reckon the heavy thing is doing it all yourself, making the decisions, having to fill in all your own gaps.

tags dymo grafitti pleasure

2005-03-15T20:10:00.000+11:00

Irritating
Originally uploaded by Edwinek.

To start with when I looked at this picture I thought it was Dymo tape, you know that stuff, blue plastic tape that went into a labelling machine with a dial-up letterer - very cool - my Mum wouldn't buy one. She did neat hand lettered labels instead. Boring. I wanted to dial-up the letters one by one and punch them out, then peel off the tape from its backing paper and stick it onto something.

When I lived in Adelaide Cass came around one day with a Dymo machine and we tagged the dog. (My previous whippet Eddie.) We put the word "dog" on her head then took her for a walk, we had a whole story worked out to tell people if they stopped us and asked "why does your dog have the word "dog" on its head?". We were going to say "it's a reminder" - a bit like in a thousand years of solitude where the town can't get to sleep and starts to forget what everything is, so they label things, but then they began to forget the meaning of the labels.

Tags are a bit like that.

I forgot to mention that I found the picture via the Flickr Postcard Browser. Nice.

includes Tasmania

2005-03-14T19:33:00.000+11:00

I'm looking at The Photobloggies. It's an award / prize / competition / thingummy to determine the best photoblogs around the world. It's divided up geographically. Somewhat bizarrely the organisers have felt the need to confirm that yes Tasmania is included in Australia, along with the new country "Zew Zealand":

"Best photoblog from the countries of Australia and Zew Zealand. Includes Tasmania.

I know who I'll be nominating!

instiki etc

2005-03-12T10:42:00.000+11:00

Oh my goodness - I haven't blogged for 13 whole days - this is not the way to become a better blogger!
so,
what have I been doing?

In the last couple of days I've been playing with Instiki - it's a very easy to download and use wiki. I've put it on to my home computer and I've been playing around with it . . . using it to make notes about all my different projects, and the trip, and my daily writing, etc, so on, and so forth.

What else? I finished the Monkey Baa website, and I've finished the site for Workshop 1, but that's got some problems that I need to resolve.

And I've been negotiating with Adam and Brian about where we're going to meet up in Spain, and we've finally settled on Madrid! Of course. Yay team!

buildings are different for architects

2005-02-27T21:18:00.000+11:00

These guys have been touring Europe looking at buildings, and playing with them as well, their Daily Masterpiece post is very funny, but may be slightly disturbing for readers who have not been exposed to architects architecting before. They have pictures illustrating the post here at Flickr.

It reminds me that when I stopped studying architecture buildings suddenly became enjoyable again, I could have any opinion I liked, or no opinion at all. Very nice. Very relaxing.

telephony

2005-02-25T00:00:00.000+11:00

This is excellent, it's a counterscript to use with telemarketers, I recommend when asking the questions to keep your voice even, and your mouth smiling at all times, to indicate your friendly and yet impassionate perspective on things.

kottke had a job!

2005-02-23T17:30:00.000+11:00

Jason Kottke has decided to give up his day job, and blog full-time for a year. This is remarkable for a number of reasons:

I'd imagined that he already made his money from blogging, or things associated

though I couldn't imagine how

he obviously reads and processes a lot of stuff, and puts it up in a very engaging way, so he's almost becoming a professional information processor, pointing to various things, rather than a writer that you read for what he is writing

judging by the response at del.icio.us he should be successful - at least 58 people have linked to his post about going pro and the need for micropatrons, and at least 413 people have linked to his blog.

It'll be very interesting to see how well it works.

I found out via Chapati Mystery which is a very fine blog compassing history, cricket, kite flying, ritual sacrifice, US politics and a lot more. And I was directed to Chapati Mystery by Kottke. Nice circularity, almost chapati like, maybe.

tracesÂ¹

2005-02-23T13:59:00.000+11:00

tracesÂ¹
Originally uploaded by hinke.

One of the things I like about Flickr is that other people are out there taking the sort of photos that I like - you know - a wall with some paint and a half obscured tag, all very formally composed. Very beautiful, and subtle.

salvation

2005-02-20T21:49:00.000+11:00

Looking at opensourceCMS.com I found this exchange:

[Guest] Alan: Which is the best free CMS tool?

[Guest] rib: howdy

[Guest] bob: hi

[Guest] Bibo: Mambo is free. Salvation in Christ costs you nothing either. It has been fully paid for. Accept the free offer now!

By the way CMS stands for Content Management System.

we like the Triffids

2005-02-19T08:29:00.000+11:00

Lenton has pointed out to me that there are now 4 (four) people who have listed The Triffids in the "Favourite Music" part of their Blogger profile. This is good news. It might even mean that Triffids' songs start turning up randomly on radio stations . . . that'd be cool. It wouldn't be so cool if one of their tunes got morphed into an advertising jingle - I really hate watching tv and finding that some song from my distant past has been cut down into a 20 or 10 sec loop and is background music for pretty girls in frocks and jeans and etc. smiling inanely, or pouting unreasonably, or having some kind of generic "fun", to tempt us to buy whatever it is that they are selling.

However I digress, The Triffids, great band from Perth, my favourite song "Field of Glass" recorded in 1984 at Maida Vale, London. I used to go and see them at Caringbah Inn! Those were the days!

swing bridge blog

2005-02-16T09:37:00.000+11:00

inspection
Originally uploaded by brendadada.

Nice oil can! Nice colours - greys, warm browns, orange, shell pink hands!

This picture is of someone on the/a swing bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle. The bridge has it's own blog - Swing's Blog - it's good.

eucalyptus

2005-02-14T18:07:00.000+11:00

I haven't read the book - it seemed a far-fetched premise to me - a man who grows every species of Eucalyptus on his property, I don't think it'd work I mean you've got your really big tall trees growing on ex-volcanic soil, and your mallee growing out in sandhills, and little stunted trees growing on sandstone cliffs on the coast. So, no, can't see it myself.

But now given the flurry over Jocelyn Moorhouse, and Russell and Nic, and the film being indefinately postponed, and the town of Bellingen in uproar (I doubt it), I might have to read the book and see if I reckon it'd translate to the big screen. Here's stuff about the putatitive (usage?) film at IMDB, and here's the book at Amazon where its current sales rank is #11,540.

Mind you I thought there was no way the The English Patient could be made into a film, and look how wildly popular that was, so I'm not a good judge.

*

currently reading:

Joyce Carol Oates "Beasts"
and
Agatha Christie "They Came to Baghdad"

oil crash

2005-02-14T08:44:00.000+11:00

One of the guys at work left me two links to look at through the evening shift. The first Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash has the catchy slogan - "deal with reality before reality deals with you" - it also makes a lengthy, and seemingly well-documented argument for preparing for the time when oil requirements exceed supply and we can not go on living as we are now. The second is an essay by Richard Heinberg A letter from the future in which he imagines himself as a 100 year old looking back from 2101 over the last century . . . very interesting.

Ironically, both my workmate and I are heading off to Europe on holiday this year - how much oil will that use up?

flowers for Rafah

2005-02-05T14:37:00.000+11:00

flowers for Rafah
Originally uploaded by brendadada.

beautiful and moving, flowers and destruction

blog survey

2005-02-05T13:05:00.000+11:00

Caron Spector is a blogger and second year graduate student at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles. For her masters thesis project, she is

researching the uses and gratifications of bloggers - basically, why people go to blogs: for content gratifications (information/education/learning), social gratifications (interactions/chatting), or process gratifications (search engines/surfing).

Very interesting! You can contribute to this research by completing this survey. I've just done it, it's very short, and not hard.

And if you're interested in Caron's blogs, they're here:
guacamolelane.blogspot and caronspector.blogspot.com.

upon tags and tagging

2005-01-31T09:55:00.000+11:00

tags aka keywords
I'm not sure why tags came into being - maybe keyword is too librarianly, whereas a tag, it's got street cred, a tag is someone's byword, their acronym, their nom de plume, or nom de guerre, a tag is also what hangs off something in a shop, the tag bears the price, this is this, a shirt, that's what it looks like but it is also $45 or $245 or whatever
a shirt can't have a keyword, but it can have a tag, a photo couldn't really have a keyword, but it can have a tag, etc

adding tags yourself, you don't have to wait for the librarian or the information specialist to tag for you, to categorise for you, you do it yourself, you self-ethnographize (!)
like Cass and I tagging the dog "dog" so that we knew that it was the dog, the idea coming, perhaps, from that part in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude" where the people write labels on the walls and the furniture and so on because they've been awake for so long, the insomnia plague, that they can no longer remember what anything is. So that Edie/Eddie is a dog, and she is also labelled "dog", so what does this "dog" do? see, this is what she does . . . and you have a look at the thing labelled dog, and you can see that that is what it does,
so,
if I make a tag called tag, and then write about it, and get Cass to put up the photo labelled tag, and link to that etc, then we are exhibiting the type of thing that it is . . . and what it does and how we can use it,
and,
I am still a little bit unclear about how the whole thing works: because the photograph in Flickr is tagged 'tag', and because my blog post is tagged 'tag' and because I've started a collection of links at del.icio.us tagged 'tag' then they can all join together and be displayed at technorati, and then a RSS created for them, and that can be pumped out at Bloglines (I think). And more importantly, all of the people who're interested in 'tag' can look for it, if they've got the right type of equipment, and understand how to do it, I think it is to do with things being written with XML

(Malfi is sleeping and snarling, a new tag, 'sleep_snarl', if I took a picture I could tag it that way.)

making connections - what does it rely upon? knowing the keywords, knowing what people call things, but as you investigate the context, become buried in it, you get to know what a thing might be called or what an interesting line of investigation might be,
so,
for people who speak English it is kind of easy, as long as you can work out the context, and for people who speak other languages, and are interested and involved in the context, eg programmers, can pick out the words that they're interested in, and people that speak completely different languages, eg English speakers who're not into programming can follow along and find completely different sets of information, and for us, the people that only speak and read one alphabet, we can't do arabic, or chinese, or korean, then we are stuck with one path

if I made the label/tag 'sleep_snarl' then I could find the picture again later, to compare with other 'sleep_snarl' pictures, so what this depends on is being able to see the label/tags as you do the tagging, and on being able to find my tags again later. What categories do I already have, and is this a new category, and should I put this thing here? I wonder over time if the categories will shift . . . that is, if a thing labelled truck will go on to be labelled lorry later on, but that is okay, because it shows layering of names and of usage, so it's like the OED and the way that it tells you the first known English usage of a word, like serendipity, being a word made up by * from a story about Serendip.

the problem also is having the little bit of code handy to use so that you can make the tag . . . maybe that could go in a blogging template? ah ha!

tags: tag, sleep_snarl, dog

scaring the horses (actually the dog!)

2005-01-30T15:04:00.000+11:00

It took us a while, but we've worked it out - the guys who were lined up on parade outside Sancta Sophia on Friday, and the guys running around Victoria Park in matching t-shirts and shorts holding water bottles, and the marching bands practising outside the Women's College at Sydney University this morning (who so alarmed Malfi that Tim had to pick her up and carry her along the road) - they're all here for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo "Salute to Australia"

Why Australia needs saluting I don't know.

Australia Day

2005-01-26T11:26:00.000+11:00

Today is Australia Day. We were going to have a picnic with Sandie and Jill under the big fig tree in Rushcutter's Bay park but the weather has been very wet all week, so that got cancelled. (Of course today is brilliant blue sky - but who knows how long that will last, and anyway Sandie has to make bums.)So Tim and I will go to Chinatown and eat lunch at Mother Chu's instead, then maybe go on down to the MCA and look at the Bridget Riley exhibition.

Here's what Australia Day, 2001 looked like at Warumbul, in the Royal National Park.

tags: australia

20 questions

2005-01-25T21:57:00.000+11:00

in my great wandering across the web I came across this: 20 questions about blogging It's very interesting, questions include:

"5. Blogs are being adopted by social activists, in political and policy domains: will the rise of social media lead to a fundamental change in society, and if so, what sort of changes will they be?"

and

"7. Are there common characteristics of successful bloggers that can be adopted by others, and if so, what are they?"

the answers given to these questions, are given by bloggers leaving comments, not that many comments come to think about it, but maybe the thought of 20 questions tired people out.

See more progress on: Be a better blogger

tags: blog, questions, 43things

ta-da to-do

2005-01-25T18:40:00.000+11:00

I'm playing with ta-da. It's a list making thingummy, made by the same people that made BaseCamp, which is a project management thingummy.

You can have private lists, just for yourself, or shared lists with friends, or public lists which anyone can look at. Here's my first list.

*

I found it while I was looking through Jason Kottke's blog (which I haven't done in a while) for a post about a book or a paper about anxiety brought on by having too many friends, or something. I didn't read about it on his blog, but it's something he might've recorded. I was looking for Makeme, she describes a similar phenomenon here: all quiet and wondered if there was a name for it.

investigative poetry

2005-01-24T20:22:00.000+11:00

I found this today, an excerpt from Ed Sander's "Investigative Poetry": Section 2: Techniques of Investigative Poetry. The book was first published in 1976. It's very, very good. For example this:

We will see the day of

RELENTLESS
PURSUIT OF DATA!

Interrogate the Abyss!

and this:

So many investigative reporters live in alcoholic upper-downer unmeditative total chaos, bouncing from bad news to bad news (which is one of the reasons---in order to strike a balance of peace---to open up "friend-
ship files," that is, files on benevolent and thrilling subjects, such
as your best friend) ...

mailroom

2005-01-17T22:08:00.000+11:00

This is great: camera mail.

On the 22nd of December 2004, Kyle Van Horn taped a disposable camera to a piece of black foamcore and inscribed upon it the following message: "ATTENTION POSTAL WORKERS! Please help us with our project. As this camera travels across the country we want photos of all whom it encounters. Please take a photo before you pass it along. Thank you!"

I particularly like "Please help us with our project", it's a cool phrase, and I imagine that postal workers, much like newspaper circulation officers, have got a lot of head space for thinking about projects they might like to get on with, and may be willing if asked nicely to contribute to someone elses thing.

I got it via cafenut, who is also aiming to "be a better blogger".

fonzarelli 07

2005-01-17T08:33:00.000+11:00

Last night, walking up Market St, there was a guy wearing a t-shirt with Fonzarelli 07 written across the back. The funny thing was he looked like a taller, slimmer version of Ralph Malf.

*

here are last night's notes - 160105

as it turns out I haven't read the Iliad

2005-01-13T21:45:00.000+11:00

yes, ahem, I haven't read the Iliad, but I've read the Odyssey, and I can't take my gloating "I've done this" label off 43 things without deleting the comment which points out to me very kindly that I've not actually done it!
so,
I've decided to put up a new goal which is to read the Iliad and the Odyssey, first of all I've got to find the books . . . the Iliad is on the top shelf, not sure where Odysseus is hiding out, but I've got to get through Troy before I get onto him and Athena with the shining eyes.

(See more progress on "read the iliad and the odyssey"...)

"I opened the door to the car and let fear out."

2005-01-12T01:17:00.000+11:00

The title to this post comes from DogTheBountyHunter.com a strangely compelling website. (thanks Stephen, thanks Matthew)

If you want to see what else I looked at while I was at work, here are the notes: 110105.htm

laughing in the dark

2005-01-11T01:37:00.000+11:00

Ah - tonight - first of all I got an email from Cade which made me laugh a lot - one of his blogs is getting too many visitors! can you believe it? so as I'm replying to him, I hear a big thump, and I look around, and Malfi looks around, and there's a great big possum sitting in the kitchen!

So, I look at the possum, and Malfi looks at the possum, and I realise that my camera is in my bag which is much closer to the possum than I am, and then almost simultaneously the possum decides that it's not what it expected inside, and Malfi also decides that possums are not meant to be inside, and they both rush out.

No picture of the possum sitting in the kitchen. It might've come in looking for Malfi's dinner.

Anyway I laughed a lot.

almost 60 years on

2005-01-10T18:08:00.000+11:00

The Guardian is publishing a series of articles around and about Auschwitz. In this article, The Nazi's testimony, Laurence Rees writes about his interview with Oskar Gröning, who served with the SS at Auschwitz.

Throughout his life, Gröning believes he did what he thought was right; it's just that what was "right" then, he says, turns out not to be "right" today.

Very interesting.

also from the Guardian's archives:
The German massacres of Jews in Poland
Friday December 11, 1942
This article details a Note sent from the Polish government to the UN, and the UN's reaction. Again, very interesting.
How the Jews in France were rounded up
Thursday September 3, 1942

last boat to Cairo

2005-01-07T21:16:00.000+11:00

For the first time in ages, a very long time indeed, I'm listening to Madness - it's taking me back to a party at the end of year 12? at Daniel Marks' place, where the high point was listening to Madness, and John Dye falling asleep under the table - bored shitless I'm thinking now. Actually I think it was the end of year 10, so 1980.

brought to you by - brunch!

2005-01-03T22:23:00.000+11:00

Looking through profiles I noticed that Matthew lists "brunch" as one of his interests, I thought I wonder if other people are interested in brunch, who could he get together with? Karina is interested in brunch also, and film:

Karina is currently working on her MA in Cinema Studies at New York University. She has begun writing a dissertation on the representation of heterosexual female excess in 20th-century Hollywood film, and hopes to go on to the PhD program to finish it. If all goes well, you'll be calling her Dr. Karina Longworth by 2008.

She and Matthew might get along passably well.