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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.
OMG, the broke Fark, those….
Fark has a new design. It isn’t pretty, but probably worse still is the loading times, it’s beyond slow to buggery. What in the world were they thinking? Took me over a minute to get to the bottom of the page to leave a comment, and longer again to actually make the comment, and this […]
Where’s Krug?
Thought I might open this one up, given I’m not getting responses to my emails, and I’m hearing all sorts of interesting rumours: where is David Krug? he’s literally MIA? anyone have any ideas? health or something else?
Lest We Forget, Anzac Day 2007
Something a little more upbeat this year, some Banjo Patterson: We’re All Australians Now; Australia takes her pen in hand, To write a line to you, To let you fellows understand, How proud we are of you. From shearing shed and cattle run, From Broome to Hobsons Bay, Each native-born Australian son, Stands straighter up […]
The Big Brother lie
Just watching Big Brother now (Monday night: WIN WA is actually showing it this year, so I don’t have to pray for TEN coverage from Perth). Gretel Killeen has at least 3 times referred to the entry of the housemates as being “last night” or “24 hours later” in referral to the 2 about to […]
How Many Australian Blogs are there?
Meg asks a question right out of my own past: how many Australian Blogs are there?. I’m going to guess. If we include MySpace blogs as blogs (which we should BTW), I’m going to guess 3-4 million, maybe more. Without MySpace, 1 million. It might be time to do some digging, or even a fully […]
Is Naomi Robson hot?
OK, so this isn’t usually the forum for sexist comments on the female form, but Channel Seven’s Naomi Robson has never struck me as being overly attractive before, and yet this picture, from news.com.au…well, it puts a different spin on it. In old world parlance, she’s a pretty good looking sort. Now note to female […]
Some people are just gutless
This isn’t something I’m particularly fond of writing, but it’s just so wrong it cant be left unsaid. The Age covers the Top 100 Australian blogs, and finishes with this: One blogger, who did not want to be named, told The Age that the top blog, Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger site, was outperformed by a lot […]
What does the Virginia Tech massacre say about South Koreans? It’s don’t write stupid blog posts
Foreign Policy has the headline: What do the Virginia Tech slayings say about South Koreans? I’ll tell you what it says: don’t write stupid blog posts. What a stupid headline. FP might conclude that there isn’t a question in relation to South Korean students, but the whole question shouldn’t have been put in the first […]
Beer as the root of modern society
I like this guys logic: “Beer is the basis of modern static civ?Ǭ?ilization,” began Bamforth, Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science at the University of California, Davis. “Because before beer was discovered, people used to wander around and follow goats from place to place. And then they realized that this grain [barley] could be grown […]
New Australian Top 100 list
It’s days like this I miss owning The Blog Herald…if only so I could be higher up the list 🙂 Dipping into the Blogpond has put together a new list of Australia’ Top 100 blogs, and I’ve made in at #8, all for a site which I don’t even really try on, seriously needs some […]
Why some bloggers shouldn’t be electoral pundits
I literally chocked on the Coke Zero I was drinking when I read this. Don’t have the direct link, but quoting from Trevor Cook: If ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù and it is a big if ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù Labor were to secure the 58 per cent national two-party preferred vote suggested by the polls at the next election, my election […]
If the Kathy Sierra death threat meme was a legal case, would it be thrown out for lack of evidence?
Wired tries to do some investigative journalism into the whole Kathy Sierra OMG death threats meme, and doesn’t come up trumps. If the whole thing was a legal case, would it be thrown out for lack of evidence? It even appears that at least a good portion of the defendants in this case have now […]
Wisdump on the market
The Paul Scrivens owner Wisdump is on the market at Sitepoint. Bidding from $15k with a BIN of $30k.
Dan Rather talks plants?
He hates the blogosphere, but it’s fairly clear we won, because Dan Rather has been reduced to doing guest appearances on Martha Stewarts TV show talking about….wait for it….Exotic Plants 🙂 What goes around comes around I guess, a lesson others should prepare themselves for, because I know a couple of people due a bucketload […]
If you’re a games developer and you didn’t back the Wii, guess what?
If you’re a games developer and you didn’t back the Wii, guess what? Your profits and sales are down whilst your competition is seeing increasing profits and sales. Officially. Dare I say to EA as a Wii owner: sucked in 🙂
It’s time for people to grow up: Scoble vs Winer
Looks like the Scobles have fallen out with Dave Winer. I don’t know much about Maryam because I don’t read her blog, but I’ve observed Robert’s behaviour long enough, he’s a “you’re with me, or against me” sort of guy, one who takes a disagreement as being a personal attack, a declaration of war if […]
TV: where Australia still lags far behind the US
From a Wired Report on TV: “According to Nielsen, the average consumer [in the United States] now has access to 104 traditional TV channels” Lets see. I’ve got 10, and only because I live on an estate that rebroadcasts a couple of free to air satellite channels across the estate SBS,ABC,Seven,Nine,Ten,GWN,WIN,Now,Bloomberg & ABC 2. The […]
Western Australia now the most taxed state
SMH: WA takes lead as heaviest taxer Absolutely disgraceful. When I moved here nearly 10 years ago WA was one of the lowest taxing states in the nation, if not the lowest. Unfortunately the only way to avoid taxes here now is to not undertaken any transactions that involve paperwork: for memory our stamp duty […]
Wii outsells PS3 + XBox 360 in Feb
Latest US sales figures via El Reg: “According to market watcher NPD, some 335,000 Wiis were sold in the US in February. Microsoft sold 228,000 Xbox 360s and Sony 127,000 PS3s. Nintendo was just 20,000 units short of outselling both its rivals put together.” Overall figures to date: “Americans have bought around 5m 360s, to […]
The 2007 Federal Election will be fought on WorkChoices
Attended Capelfest yesterday, one of the biggest local annual fairs held in the South West of Western Australia. The Liberal Candidate wasn’t in attendance. Pure stupidity, Forrest might have a 10% margin but she won’t have the advantage of incumbency and if the swing is on the seat could easily be tight…even lost. The ALP […]