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Heavy Plant

Walk past a "Heavy Plant" warning and wonder vaguely if the trees thought it was for them; if whoever put it up had enough imag...

2013-12-28

Lazy post


Ooh look, a lazy blog post. How special.

Just some things I came across that I noticed.


Visual effects just keep getting better. However it seems we are now so consumed by consumerism that we're constrained to showcasing creativity as commercials (not that I'd have done anything different).





Science validates my coffee and beer heavy diet
Caffeine + alcohol keeps your chromosomes just rightSome telomeres are too long, and some are too short. Perhaps striking the right balance of caffeine and alcohol is the key to keeping them just right—as if you needed an excuse to have another hot toddy.

Cicadas attempt to deafen Sydney. This is the loudest year since I've been here without any question
Cicadas having a blast this year
Experts say the class of 2013 is already larger and louder than anything NSW has seen or heard for at least 10 years.

2013-11-29

Theme party

in: Rsl, Dee Why NSW 2099, Australia
Australia appears to love theme parties. I have been to more themed parties here than I would have thought reasonable. One was even themed 'the letter W'. I wore a puzzled expression all night and kept asking people, "What? No, really. What?!". I know how to party I do.

I loathe theme parties. They have the painful combination of over-enthusiasm, limited ability and enforced fun also common to amateur dramatics and office sports teams.

Theme parties are okay if you're a student in your first year of university and genuinely need a theme to help break the ice, even then they can be treated with a degree of suspicion. I found a wary participation and a willingness to make fun of yourself good idea at that point in life (any point in life come to think of it).

I can't remember whether it was my university or a friends where I went to a "traffic light party"; if you are attached and not interested in intimate company you wear a red badge or piece of clothing, if open to offers but not actively looking you wear a yellow one, and if you're up for anything you wear green. Inevitably by the end of the night those wearing yellow had drifted off to another party, the greens clung hopefully on, imagining that their shy glances and self-conscious conversational openings would be rewarded by finding someone as awkward as themselves, and all those wearing red had copped off with each other.

A similar degradation of behaviour is one thing I fear when attending any themed party. That one minute you'll be thinking how fun it will be to wear a big fake moustache and the next you'll find yourself sat next to a bubbling fondue set picking car keys out of a bowl.

The other major fear is the party-goer who has taken it all a bit too seriously. There is a certain type of person to whom themed parties present an opportunity to show off that they simply cannot resist, and in any case can barely suppress in everyday life. You know the person I mean. The one who can source a pantomime horse costume at twenty minutes notice and, given a little extra time, will also supply a willing volunteer to be the rear-end of same. Not only do these people show all the rest of us up by putting in far too much effort, they somehow do it absolutely stone cold sober and are quite often disgusted by my lack of effort and/or unwillingness to 'get into the spirit of it' until at least mildly inebriated. For some unknown reason these people seem intent on having the most talked about costume - regarding this as some form of moral victory - and so they patrol the room bugging anyone and everyone until they collect even the faintest of compliments. Quite often they will stay sober the entire time. Bastards!

Tonight, in case you haven't guessed, I have my office Christmas party. It has a Wild West theme (yes indeed, how very festive). I was cajoled into going by a co-worker. It's at a local RSL club a short distance from work. I work in local government. BAH, HUMBUG!!

2013-10-10

Doodling is bad for your productivity

I appear to have had my notes interrupted by an inconvenient in-text dragon's nose. I hate it when that happens.

2013-09-21

The trouble with tablets...

Kirk dealing with tablets Tribbles
[disclaimer - I wrote this a year ago but it still seems valid]

...is that once you've got one you need want a few of them. I really like the 7 inch tablet for casual browsing and it's exactly the right size for carrying around, but you can't make phone calls on it. If you want to do work then the 10 inch version is great for a portable device, but bloody hell it's heavy, and bulky.

Once you can also write on a tablet - the windows 8 tablet that I've been used has really good handwriting recognition - you also realise that the potential for this to be a go-to bit of kit in place of a notepad is enormous. However there is no way on earth I am going to start lugging around a lump like a 10 inch tablet that weighs the best part of a kilo to meetings out of the office.

2013-06-21

Kitsch

I have always loved the mail order catalogues that come through the door for their unwavering devotion and enthusiastic marketing of tat.

Just occasionally one surpasses itself; the pictures that follow are all from just one catalogue.









Pity the poor fool who had to write the copy for these.

2013-04-07

This week's links (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

2013-03-18

Time

in: North Curl Curl NSW, Australia
I used to have so much time and I used it so poorly. Now I have so little that I have to find ways of maximising the little I have available. Writing seems a distant and nostalgic dream, forgotten for a very pleasant but very busy present. I need someone to make me some time.



Note: I am not full of scotch. It's beer.

2013-03-17

This week's links (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

2013-03-10

This week's links

  • Hmmm Corporations as an invading, all conquering memetic AI infection. As a theory it has legs.
  • Just fucking NO!!!!!! It took me ages to get this caffeinated why the bloody hell would I then eat the most foul fruit commonly available?
  • Because you should know this.
    • Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of "de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum" (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..", comes from a line in section 1.10.32
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

2013-01-15

The quiet moments...

... Are where I draw breath. When no-one else is awake in the house or when there is ten minutes between tasks or appointments. That time in which one can have a cup of coffee and collect disparate thoughts together. They make the rest of the day tolerable.

Rather than filing the day with activity from start to end these times feel like they need to be valued as things in themselves to foster balance and focus. Have a cup of tea rather than making that phonecall that isn't really that urgent. Instead of filling these times by grabbing your mobile and jumping on Facebook or tweeting something no-one will read, look around, take a deep breath and just do nothing. Feel how the thoughts slowly start to flow back? Good, isn't it?