Luke ‘n’ Kim

“internet famous”

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?

Posted in generica, melbourne, tech, twitter | No Comments »

1 from 4

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.

Posted in football, generica | 2 Comments »

the first warm day of spring!

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…

Posted in family, generica, melbourne | 1 Comment »

yes, kim made the cake!

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…

Posted in family, generica, melbourne | 4 Comments »

podcaster

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.

Posted in generica, tech | 1 Comment »

part of the problem

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.

Posted in generica, tech, twitter | No Comments »

fifty two

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?

Posted in generica | 1 Comment »

we didn’t plan it like that

normally it’s kim and i that notice we’re wearing exactly the same colours as we’re leaving the house, today, it was me and liam… great huh… in fairness, kim was the one who put him in that jumper… ahh little peanuts… what a champ!

Posted in family, generica, melbourne, twitter | 1 Comment »

yuck!

new video of liam walking around…

Posted in family, generica, youtube | No Comments »

sport > everything

hmm, the olympics…

i kinda have a problem with the money it all seems to cost, all these countries spending hundreds of millions if not billions on training athletes… for what? then NBC reportedly spends 1 billion dollars obtaining sole broadcast rights in the USA… and then the incessant sponsorship and advertising, can someone tell me whether or not the IOC are a “not for profit” organisation, and if not, why not?

it was explained to me today that from an economics point of view, the olympics are necessary for moral.  as if the country needs distraction from all the war, famine, devastation etc… oh wait… can you imagine if that money was put towards something with more of a longview?

i can see the appeal for an international sporting meet, but why not show some of the olympic spirit i keep hearing about… oh btw, is it similar to christmas spirit?

how about;

• absolutely no exclusivity with tv broadcasting and online streaming, or
• one manufacturer of sporting equipment per sport, decided two years in advance so everyone has time to “get used to” the feel… including shoes, unitards, bicycles, kayaks… even those weird fencing thingys…

this would completely level the playing field for both competitors and spectators…

i dunno, maybe the communism is rubbing off on me?

…and yes, you could probably point at the football world cup or motogp world championship and say “why bother?” or “what a waste!” like i am here, but neither parade around like the olympics insisting that they unite the world and transcend all barriers.

Posted in generica | 2 Comments »

no waking, only sleeping

i’ve been putting off this post for a while, saving a choice rant for when i could articulate it properly… unfortunately i doubt that’ll ever be possible, so;

what is the worst alarm clock noise you’ve ever had?

“worst” is an interesting word, because it may translate to “most effective”

insert invader zim quote here

i’m yet to find an alarm that has me springing out of bed happy to be alive, further, my first thought in the morning used to be “what time is it” but now it’s “no waking, only sleeping”…

did you ever use that old school “beep beep beep beep” on your clock radio? i have in the past, just so i would get up to watch motorbike racing when we didn’t have a VCR (hardcore huh) , but otherwise i’ve used my mobile or the radio… which is fine… and then I started having to be “oncall” for work… it’s like having an alarm clock that could ring at any time, sounds FUN huh.

answering the oncall blackberry isn’t optional, it is, for all intents and purposes, a wake up call. so it needs to have a ringtone that is so loud and obnoxious you cannot sleep through it… with all this in mind, the default blackberry ringtones are abysmal.

the loudest, most likely to wake a person up ringtone is the default “old timey bell telephone” ringtone.

…but this is where we run into problems, this ringtone is the default for incoming voice calls for every blackberry on the planet.

imagine for a moment, every “manager level” desk jockey having your alarm clock noise, as their ringtone.

**shudder** is an understatement…

“so why don’t you just change the oncall phone ringtone?”

yeah, i know, next time i have the oncall phone i will, but the noise is so ingrained now, it’s a little bit late.

the fact that they don’t change it, feeds into another theory i have about middle-management, but i’ll save that for another time…

Posted in generica, tech | 2 Comments »

making me kinda sad

as an australian, can you still support vale rossi, while casey stoner is racing?

i can’t link to any videos and show you any footage (or even interviews) of the laguna seca round because dorna is so tight with the licensing… but anyway… after the race, casey voiced some concerns about rossi’s lines; apparently he was coasting mid to late corner and pushing casey wide intentionally, and then there’s that pass on the corkscrew, crazy, but again, i can’t link to it… and the way rossi behaved post-race… not cool.

so now, to me, the rossi camp has lost a bit of sheen, i guess he never was a gentleman, but none of them are, are they?

then again, casey had a pretty wild temper when he was in 250’s, racing against dani pedrosa… he has to beat rossi on the track, he’s certainly quick enough, just stay rubber side down for the most part.

weird, i used to be neutral about it, not any more.

Posted in bike racing, generica, tech, youtube | Comments Off