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Archive
Posts from 2004 to 2017. This was a personal blog during a fairly chaotic decade in independent publishing — some of it tech commentary, some of it Australia, some of it ephemera. It’s kept here in full for anyone who arrives via an old link.
Current writing lives at SiliconANGLE.
NASA: Need Another Six Asahi’s
Today’s only in America tale is bought to you by fine American heroes at NASA who drive the Space Shuttle whilst drunk. I would imagine that being blotto in Space would be fun, and imagine the toilet humor; shit flying would take on a whole new meaning. Spot question: how the fark do you random […]
Thanks To Bunbury Fire And Flood
In an age of crap customer service and people who don’t care, every now and then you encounter a company that bucks the trend. At 10am PST this morning (1am AWST) I got an email from my wife indicating that the hose behind the fridge had broken and that a good portion of the house […]
OMG Qantas To Offer Infight Internet, Power
Who ever thought that Qantas might become a world-leading airline? OK, so I’m typing this from the Qantas Domestic Terminal at Perth Airport on free WiFi, but as Engadget reports, starting next year Qantas is going to offer Wifi + Power on A380’s and refitted 747s. Touchwood it’s the entire 747 fleet given about half […]
Cockups, Corrections…and today I’m having a happy day
A fair bit of feedback on some recent posts. It reminded me that going on a puritanical save the world by highlighting wrongs binge isn’t always a good thing, people in glass houses etc… Matt Mullenweg I found an email from Matt Mullenweg in my spam box re the post on WordPress and the crackdown […]
So Australian ISP’s are going to charge of uploads, so lets talk upload speeds.
News.com.au reports that Optus is joining Telstra in adding uploads to monthly cap limits, and that others may also start counting uploads. As much as I despise the Australian ISP industry for having caps to start with, when in the US ISP’s are mostly all you can eat concerns, it does make sense that if […]
WA Web Awards Finalists Announced
See here. Finalists are the top 3 in each category. For a State that is so remote from the rest of the world there’s an impressive lineup of sites. The winners will be announced at the Duxton, Perth, August 17. And incase I’ve failed to mention it previously: I was a judge for the awards. […]
Global Warming Eat Your Heart Out
The Sky is Falling! Well it was 3 weekends ago when I took this. Not bad for a place that according to many is becoming bone dry, a place that is forever suppose to bare the burden of drought. Filmed on my Panasonic DMC FZ-50 still camera, great video quality for a still camera.
Facebook Friends
I’ve decided that the one thing I don’t like about Facebook is exerting effort for a small group of people; basically I don’t get why Facebook pages should be closed to all bar friends. It’s not that I dislike my Facebook friends; I appreciate every one of them, it’s just that in a society that […]
Anyone Getting MyBlogLog Spam?
I don’t even use MyBlogLog anymore, and yet I keep getting spam emails from MyBlogLog users; advertising networks, Nigerian style scams etc. Am I alone? I probably shouldn’t complain and just switch off the emails and resign my MyBlogLog membership properly..but I thought I’d check. Looks like Yahoo ownership still hasn’t improved things.
Matt Mullenweg: The Next (Old) Mena Trott?
All that is old is new again. I’ve been following in passing the debate over sponsored WordPress themes over the last week or so (Jacob Gower has a good summary, Matt Mullenweg’s post here) and I can’t help but shake my head. As Jacob notes the folks at WordPress and other sites are entitled to […]
Australia’s Cheapest Lego
But I should add to the post title that it took 30 minutes including me arguing with a Big-W Bunbury floor manager to get this price. 1 big box of lego, advertised (so I found out at the checkout) for $28.88 on special (I’m guessing its usually $40-$50), the floor price as the photo shows: $8.88. The […]
Podcast Coming Soon
For all 5 people who will probably listen, I’m another step forward to a podcast again, after a couple of previously failed attempts at the Blog Herald, then a TPN podcast that never got off the ground as I got caught up running a previous company. I’ve got the Mic, I’ve got Garage Band and I’ve […]
Windows Vista Speech Recognition
This is hilarious (via FSJ)
J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield
Apparently it’s a NY based monster flick. What ever it is, the trailer is pretty damn cool.
Google Blog Maximises The Cringe
Bloggin’ down under: the official Google Blog. OMFG. This post followed the Postini announcement. Could the cliche’s be any thicker and the content more curdling. It’s hard enough having Americans tell you how much they love your accent and thinking that you’ve got a bloody great big knife in your pocket without having the worlds […]
The Simpsons Do World of Warcraft
(via CrunchGear)
Internet Access: Intercontinental Burswood
I should probably start recording these for my own future reference. Internet Access: Intercontinental Burswood (Perth) 55c / minute, Max $29 per day.
Design Challenge
I’ve long since known that the template I’m running here at duncanriley.com isn’t up to scratch, I’ve tried implementing another template but that lasted about 2 days; it was simply an abject failure. I need a new template. One that is fairly unique. I want a 3 column setup with a very unique header and […]
I’m Getting Old
Silicon User on the History of the Compact Disc I’m old enough to remember LP’s being on sale but I never owned a record player. At that time LP’s were half a music store, the other half were cassettes. My first Hi-Fi/ Music system was a twin cassette tape system that allowed recording from one […]
Parallels Is Very Cool
I was preparing to write a negative piece about Parallels, but for some reason it fixed itself this morning with a fresh boot. Confluence is a treat and it’s dead easy to use. The screen shot says it all (click for bigger version). Proudly posted from a Mac with Windows Live Writer 🙂