October 2008
2 posts
The not so clever country
Do Australians really get the politicians they deserve? I’m pondering this question as a result of the research for my feature story on “e waste”. If you’ve never heard of it you wouldn’t be alone but it just refers to all the old computers, TVs, mobile phones and MP3s and the like that end up in landfill. Anything that was once plugged into an electrical socket or...
“Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.”
– Seneca
September 2008
7 posts
Warrior or just garbage?
Was lucky enough to score some free tickets to see Garbage Warrior documentary this week, although nothing is actually free once you factor in the parking, choctop and coffee. But that’s being churlish because I don’t get the opportunity to go to the movies on a Monday night (a school night no less) all that often. I took my 13 year old son because, like a lot of kids, he’s interested in the...
Ten Years On
So,Google is ten years old. Hard to believe we ever lived without it. Just like sliced bread, clingwrap and mobile phones Google has slipped effortlessly into our lives and changed them forever spawning a diversity of diversions from Googlewhacking to Google Earth and Google Maps. The internet existed before Google Inc. of course but for a lot of people both terms have become interchangeable. The...
“Don’t be afraid to make a mistake, your readers might like it.”
– Randolph William Hearst
Dress rules...OK
It’s not surprising people are moving away from newspapers to online. Not only is the quality of hard news stories on the decline but they can’t even keep their “lifestyle supplements” up to scratch. Case in point is the SMH “essential” insert that appears every Thursday. Originally a “Science and Health” section this lasted little more than 12...
eDemocracy- a new model?
I find that my mind is starting to work like the internet. I start exploring one rabbit hole and can’t stop until I either find what I’m looking for or end up nearly as mad as The Hatter or as dazed as Alice. So it was that the recent sackings at Fairfax Newspapers meant I tuned into the resultant debate about quality journalism, its place in the Fourth Estate and the part it plays in maintaining...
The past catches up with you...
I was going to write a high and mighty blog about the shenanigans at Fairfax so incensed was I at the plight of my fellow journalists, the death of quality journalism and the fall of democracy in Australia. But then I got a phone call from an old school friend (OSF1).
“I’m on Facebook looking at a photo of our 1972 netball Grand Final,” chortled OSF1. “OMG,” I...
“Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went...”
– George Orwell (1945)
August 2008
11 posts
Milestones
Today I attended my last Bookweek parade as a parent. Hooray I thought. After more than 10 years of suffering I was finally free from the last minute stress attacks associated with this annual drama. Not being handy with a Husqvarna I was running out of creative ways to fashion cardboard, pins and crepe paper into a reasonable facsimile of the most famous book characters of all time. But as I...
So many questions - keeping the "rabbits out".
People love to hate Telstra but their recent advertising with the little boy asking his father about The Great Wall of China certainly resonates with a lot of parents. We have all had our “Nasi Goreng” moments. Children, God bless their cotton socks, are endlessly inquisitive and doggedly determined to get answers irrespective of how distrtacted, frazzled, ignorant or exhausted their...
At the movies
Went to see the Jean-Paul Salome movie “Female Agents” earlier in the week. Action packed with great production values I was willing to overlook the fact that the plot was sometimes shaky and the characters a little too glamorous in time of war. They were French afterall so I wasn’t put off by the lipstick, sexy knickers and silk stockings. I liked it because it was a movie that...
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell...”
– William Shakespeare “Romeo and Juliet”
What's in a name?
I don’t know who is responsible but someone in the NSW Government deserves a pat on the back. Government websites normally don’t bring a smile to my face but some inspired public servant ( no this is not an oxymoron) has me grinning from ear to ear. I don’t know why it has tickled my fancy so much, and maybe it’s just a Search Engine Optimisation ploy but 100 Years of...
What's a Scientist worth?
After my last post on the recent (albeit predictable in an Olympic year) debate about funding for sport versus The Arts in Australia it occurred to me that Science should put the begging bowl out as well. Afterall we are supposed to be a “clever country” as well as a lucky one yet expect our researchers to spend a lot of their time writing endless submissions in the hope of getting...
“Money can’t buy you friends, but it can get you a better class of enemy”
– Spike Milligan
Every four years
Love them, or just completely “over it”, the Olympics can really polarise public opinion.Generally speaking I’d say most people admire the athletes, their dedication, their talent and their passion - let’s face it, most of us have struggled to just get out of bed these last few chilly mornings. No, it’s the other peripheral “stuff” that gets up our...
Can't we get it right ... just once?
It seems you can’t please anyone when it comes to building something in this city. From Barrangaroo to brewery site to bridge (of the Spit and Iron Cove varieties) there seems to be no way that planners, developers, architects and the community will ever be happy. Just once it should be possible for the collective intelligence to come up with a development that is well designed, has open...
Back to the Future
It didn’t take long.It was only a matter of time. No sooner had the print and TV media sent us all running, screaming, towards the nearest open window with the news that petrol prices, food prices, rents and interest rates were skyrocketing, they pull us back from the precipice with the news that we can all be saved afterall. How? What groundbreaking ideas are doing the circuit at the...
July 2008
1 post
First Post for Wednesday Online J
Didn’t think I’d have a blog but there you go! I recall that recently a lady of 109 from downtown Woy Woy (formerly famous for a tenuous link to Spike Milligan,now I’m showing my age) grasped technology and started a blog so I guess anything is possible. Still I don’t know where people get the time to maintain a blog, personally I spend all day at the computer and would...