Archive for September, 2008

“internet famous”

Monday, September 29th, 2008

i was listening to BOL-816 the other day, it contains some interesting discussion about online profiles, facebook and i guess narcissism… i was reminded of the ever-so-snarky merlin mann’s twitter feed (when he was using it) and of this gem;

If you’re really worried about your “branding,” try to stop thinking about life as a press release and just focus on _making something_ (twitter)

…just last week i decided i was tired of the majority of people from the tech news industry that i follow, and for the most part, unfollowed them, and honestly, cannot understand why people would ever follow problogger let alone the all the other wannabes. i got to thinking, what value are they actually adding? twitter is for (officially) “what are you doing right now?”, and the last thing i want to hear or read about is barely famous people doing ad-hoc press releases for their barely famous acquaintances… for me to follow someone now, they almost have to live in melbourne, not annoy me, and limit the swearing…

poignant quote from the arstechnica article:

“…researchers caution that those who are overly fond of themselves tend to cultivate a wide-but-shallow social network…”

so yeah, i think in the grand scheme of narcissism, i’m ok… i recently pared my facebook “friends” down to a reasonable number, revisited my “info” page and made sure there isn’t too much there… and i’m considering removing the “about” tab from the top of this site, hmm, would that make a difference?



1 from 4

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

have you heard about newcastle united’s fate recently? why don’t i fill you in!

apparently a couple of weeks ago kevin keegan was managing the side and everything was going pretty well, winning and drawing matches, positive rumours in the transfer market, m.owen was fit and even stayed on for another season…

then there were mumblings that funds weren’t being allocated to signings and it was out of the managers hands… after numerous meetings, one way or another, kev left the club… fans protest solidly and consistently… owner decides it was a mistake to disagree and part ways with kev, and now wants to sell the club off!

so now, the papers are full of takeover and new manager rumours, all the while the actual football players are losing at every opportunity… the premiership so far has gone like this:

1-0 win against bolton
0-3 loss against arsenal
1-2 loss against hull (!!)
1-3 loss against west ham

looks good eh…

after all my early season optimism, i think this year we’ll actually be in a relagation battle and some other clubs may even pick up some january bargains! not cool.

hopefully me writing this down will force the players to prove me wrong.



the first warm day of spring!

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

so the melbourne zoo on sunday was amazing, around every corner were animals that left me dumb struck… i find it’s a place place of mixed emotions really, i ran out of superlatives for everything i saw, the gorillas, elephants, meer cats, mountain lions, bears… etc…

but i felt sad they were in cages, not out free… but then, if that type of animal is doing ok, not endangered, protected and the rest… having them in zoos as well is probably doing good, giving people and appreciation of their majesty and even some education about the impact people have on natural habitats…

or maybe that’s just me rationalising.

-anyway- liam was great, pointing is his new thing… he’s learning more and more every day… i feel like i should list the tricks he can do now, but there’s already too many! for one thing, he has definitely tried to say ‘elmo’ crazy huh…



yes, kim made the cake!

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

what a week! our little boy is more than one year old now, and yeah, he is amazing…

the “butterflys and bumblebees” party kim and emma organised was excellent, too bad the weather was typically melbourne…

ah well, we’ve gotta show these queenslanders what the word cold actually means.

my work is still super crazy, i’ll be working most nights and weekends till mid-october it looks like, but hopefully some decent sized changes wil be coming by the end of this project… and i guess me not sleeping very well is related to that… apparently last night i leaned over kim trying to reach the floor and yelled “why did you pour the black sauce on his face?” …so yeah, sleeptalking much?

it’s not really new for me, apparently, i do crazy talk/walk stuff in my sleep all the time!

anyways, i’ve added a bunch of photos, talk to you later…



podcaster

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

just a quick note, there a few people upset that they’ve been told they can’t subscribe to and download podcasts on-the-fly with their shiny new iPhone…

…isn’t that weird, the Apple hardware is tied to the Apple software, but you realised the hardware is powerful enough and capable enough to do without iTunes and Steve tells you;

“you don’t really want to do that”

…but for once in your life, you think Steve might be wrong! you start thinking maybe he doesn’t really want to help you after all? maybe the platform isn’t as open as you thought it was? maybe it could all just boil down to his business plan?

“oh noes, Apple doesn’t just work, Steve doesn’t really heart me after all.”

btw, my nokia n95 has this functionality natively, using wifi, the built in media library, and a scheduler; easy.

yeah yeah, any chance to sink the boot in.



part of the problem

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

not sure what i really want to say here right now, i read this the other day and i liked it.

i’ve always thought social networks or socnets **groan** don’t really hold much water without actual real life contact… merlin is right, people can spend all their time grooming online presence but in reality, it all could be completely made up and no one would know any better.

i can’t stand the bickering, the evangelical atheists,and the snarky people with nothing better to do on digg; just sad.

so yeah, umm, i’m really actually really enjoying browsing around on tumblr in all my spare time, there’s some really interesting actual art out there… yes i used the A word.

i guess… filling the web with your lifestream is pretty pointless… but really, there are no rules, are there? do what you want. for me, it’s a little concerning how egocentric the people seem to be getting… he says blogging.

people have public flickr portfolios, then whinge when someone rips off their photo!

to (sort of) quote jeff, gimme a break.



fifty two

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

what’s with today, today.

let me just say, i’m a freak.

first it all started with me looking at james toselands bike, quietly marvelling at the design and symmetry of his number “52“. now i’m starting to feel like jim carey in 23; i’m am seeing 52 everywhere, it’s getting kind of scary… for probably the last three weeks, most days have gone like this;

  • woken up, looked at the clock, 6:52.
  • i’ve felt a bit hungry, checked my watch, 11:52.
  • at work, “man, is it home time yet?”… 15:52.
  • get into bed, turn off the light, 22:52.
  • and so on…

it’s all accidental and very coincidental, but still, it’s bad enough that i’m writing about in the hope that my brain will just get over it.

please?