Forty four degrees Celsius, I think that is a record for Sydney
1 January 2006
It’s almost midnight in Sydney. I think it’s safe to go outside now. Earlier today temperatures hit 44° Celsius. The last time I was in place that hot was Aswan, in Egypt.
44°C. That must be an all-time record for Sydney.
In other news, I’m pleased to report last night’s festivities were indeed festive. Seems quite a party was had at my apartment building too. When I arrived home today someone had ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed most the common areas with it.
There’s fine white powder all over the stairs and on the roof top area.
Other than that I spent the day tinkering with disassociated, and slipping cool, cool beverages. Too hot for anything else, trust me. Happy New Year 🙂
Originally published Sunday, 1 January 2006.
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climate, climate change, environment, legacy, weather
Culture jamming street signs as a means of political protest
7 May 2005
Saw this on the way to work the other morning. Along Epsom Road, in the Sydney suburb of Rosebery. I don’t know how long it has been there, or how long it will remain. I wonder what the exact point is. It could mean a number of different things when you think about it…
Originally published Saturday 7 May 2005.
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Is this Erroll Bottrell’s statue in Centennial Park Sydney?
1 January 2005
I don’t know who Erroll Bottrell is, but he’s carved his name into eternity… on the base of a statue in Sydney’s Centennial Park.
But the statue is a strange sort of ornament all up. It sits on top of what might be a ten metre high pseudo classic Greek column, making it kind of difficult to see. It’s one of several similar objects located near Busby pond in the park, but bears no inscription or plaque explaining what it is, or why it’s there.
It reminds me a little of the classic English landscape folly, being an “architectural construction which isn’t what it appears to be”. Something built for a bit of fun only. Maybe this is an Australian variation of the idea? How very eccentric.
Perhaps Erroll Bottrell designed these ornaments, and inscribed his name into the base for posterity’s sake. Maybe he was just another visitor to the park, who was handy with a carving chisel, one he just happened to be carrying at the time.
Update: Here, possibly, may be some information about Mr Bottrell.
Originally published Saturday 1 January 2005.
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Pioneers 10 and 11 courses inexplicably varying at Kuiper Belt
15 September 2004
Something weird is happening out on the boundary of our solar system, an area called the Kuiper Belt, where NASA space probes Pioneers 10 and 11 are presently located.
Both deep space probes, launched over thirty years ago, traversed the inner region of the solar system almost exactly according to plan.
Since passing beyond the orbit of Pluto though, events have taken an unexpected turn: both probes appear to be inexplicably deviating from their projected courses.
And no one can work out why. Some scientists think long held ideas on the effects of gravity over extended distances may be need to be re-thought. Others say that both probes may be leaking gases, which is contributing to the change in their trajectories.
This mystery has led to calls for a new deep space mission to see what’s happening out at the Kuiper.
By fitting a Pioneer follow-up probe with new measuring equipment, navigational device and communications gear, it should be possible to discover if the probes are in the grip of a new force of nature.
A new force of nature? Perhaps Star Wars director George Lucas’ far, far, away galaxy may not be all that distant after all…
Originally published Wednesday 15 September 2004.
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Revenge of the nerds: on naming Star Wars movies
28 July 2004
After much speculation — and discussion, heated at times, among fans — the official title of the next instalment in the Star Wars™ saga has been announced: Revenge of the Sith.
But the first question that comes to my mind is: revenge for what? Since when were the Sith so hard done by that they felt the need to extract revenge? So far everything has gone their way. Their clandestine plan to take control of the galaxy has all but succeeded.
Unless of course we are referring to their (almost) complete annihilation centuries ago. Even then revenge seems to somewhat understate what they are trying to achieve now. The other factor being no original Sith remain from that time anyway.
So it’s not as if the latter day Sith are avenging the demise of any contemporaries. Their comrades have been dead a thousand years (or whatever). If revenge is indeed what the Sith are seeking, it is certainly a dish served cold. Very cold.
I’d have thought a title like Rise of the Sith, or Rise of the Empire, would have been more appropriate. Well I just could be right (if I may say so). One or other of those titles were apparently being considered, but a change was required.
Why? Because Star War’s secrets are among the worst kept in the galaxy. It can’t be much fun for series creator George Lucas when fans keep figuring out the title of one of the most anticipated movies of all time.
But why announce the title now? After all, the movie is not due for release until May 2005. I’m guessing as just about all possible names had already been guessed, it was better to go ahead and make the name official, lest it leak later on.
There’s also of course that most basic tenet of marketing to factor into the mix as well: all publicity is good publicity.
Originally published Wednesday 28 July 2004.
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film, legacy, science fiction, Star Wars
Email is email, spam is spiced ham, talk is talk
2 February 2004
Bill Gates has unveiled a gallant plan to rid the world of email spam. A noble undertaking. I am not being sarcastic. I sincerely hope he succeeds. Especially as it is now estimated that half of all emails sent are unsolicited.
How annoying is it too see there are ten new messages in your in box, but nine turn out to be crap. But I suspect I am on the thin end of the spam email wedge. Some people receive way more.
Now there is a proposal to charge for each individual email sent. This charge, or e-stamp, may be as low as one cent per message. Not a lot, but it may be enough to deter the spammers who send out millions of messages, once they have to start paying for the privilege.
While it won’t stop the most determined or cashed up operators, it would make a welcome respite nevertheless. Many small spam operators would not only have to pay, but also make their identity known, in order to purchase e-stamps. This might be enough to see them give up.
That in turn would vastly reduce the amount of spam messages in the email system. So yes, bring it on, I say. I’m all in favour of the idea.
But a charge for email could have all sorts of intriguing ramifications. Take interoffice email messages, for example. Would they be chargeable as well? I certainly hope so. Working in an office — to my mind — is no fun at the best of times, but it gets worse when your manager and colleagues, who usually sit close by, communicate only by email. What’s with these people?
Can’t we just gather around and talk? Apparently not.
It would appear that it is far easier to correspond by email. Well maybe not for much longer. If it’s going to cost for each one liner that is dispatched to the next cubicle, we may be confronted with the prospect of a ban on interoffice email. How awful.
I’m not anti-email for work based communication though. Nothing of the sort. It is a vital tool in many situations. There is a time and a place though. Especially where distance is a factor.
My whole working relationship with some clients is purely email based. It’s of course an effective and economic method of communicating. The difference here being that they are often interstate (even overseas), and not just over the other side of a cubicle wall.
Originally published Monday 2 February 2004.
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For the common good: creative commons licences
21 January 2004
Creative commons licences are a way of allowing your online work (e.g. writing, photography, graphics, or sound samples, etc) to be used by other people, provided certain conditions are adhered to. And all without affecting your original copyright entitlement.
There are several licences for content creators to choose from, depending on the degree to which they are willing to allow their work to be reused and distributed.
Creative commons licences seem like a sensible development in response to the growing amount of material that is published in the public domain that often finds itself in a grey copyright area.
These licences, as the by-line “some rights reserved” implies, does not render copyright null or void. Instead, they serve as a guideline (of sorts) as to how people accessing material in the public domain can re-use it for their own purposes.
Originally published Wednesday 21 January 2004.
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Tim Berners-Lee, a knight of the World Wide Web
4 January 2004
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, is to be knighted:
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), will be made a Knight Commander, Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth. This was announced earlier today by Buckingham Palace as part of the 2004 New Year’s Honours list.
More much deserved recognition for someone who changed the way we communicate and share information.
Originally published Sunday 4 January 2004.
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What is worth failing for is what is worth striving for
4 January 2004
New year, new start. A time to consider new opportunities. It’s been said a million times already, and it’s only day four of 2004.
Most of us though are afraid to try something new or different for fear of failing. One statistic suggests 98 per cent of people will never realise their loftiest ambitions. How alarming. It seems to suggest we are all settling for second best in life. Or less.
So frightened are we of inevitable doom, we won’t take a chance, and peruse our dreams. I could insert lashings of rhetoric here. You only live once. There are no rehearsals in life. Just do it. I’ll spare you the drivel though.
Jugglezine’s* latest article The Pain and (half) Pleasures of Rejection (Wayback Machine link), written by Todd Pitock, suggests that in order to succeed, we need to find a cause or goal worth failing for. Something so fundamental and intrinsic to our beliefs, that failure will not ultimately matter.
It’s almost another way of saying that failure is a signpost found along the road to success. Falling down is all part of the process. And the importance of being focussed and motivated cannot be overstated.
Aside from our own inhibitions, the criticism we receive from those closest to us is the next biggest stumbling block. Sometimes our own doubts are overweighed by the negative perceptions of friends and family. Their disapproval can cut the deepest. It’s often enough to dissuade many people from ever having a go.
But it’s mind over matter. If our dreams and ambitions are worth failing for, they must be worth pursuing. Where would any of us be otherwise? If everyone were too afraid to take a chance and try a new idea? Still living in caves perhaps?
Hmm, how affirmative. I really should listen to myself more often.
*Jugglezine is no longer being published.
Originally published Sunday 4 January 2004.
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Vale Windows NT4, you were the best
4 August 2003
My days of working with the Window’s operating system NT4 are all but over. It seems ironic that this outcome was brought about while I was trying to install some updated security patches for NT4, from the Microsoft website.
After the updates had been installed, I was unable to dial back onto the net. When I investigated, I discovered that all the dial-up networking protocols had somehow corrupted, presumably during the installation of the new security patches.
Then I noticed something else. Various icons on my desktop where jumping around, or sometimes vanishing completely when I clicked on them. I ran a virus check, and discovered the presence of some sort of hack tool in the NT systems folder.
There has been an increasing incidence of hack attacks on PCs in recent months, which has partly been caused by security vulnerabilities in some versions of Internet Explorer, which allow would be hackers relatively easy access to susceptible computers.
Possibly hackers had tried to access my PC while I was in the process of downloading the security updates. Talk about ironic.
To complicate matters, my anti-virus programme wasn’t able to remove the offending item. It turns out this particular hack tool is a rather tricky number, as it attaches itself to various computer ports and cannot be deleted easily because NT4 considers it a running or in use process.
It was enough to make me reconsider my PC situation though. My current “home” computer is now over six years old, and in more recent times has been developing an increasing number of small, though irritating, problems.
While it is nothing that a full system rebuild couldn’t resolve, I have decided that since I am doing more work from home now, it is well and truly time to upgrade my computer system.
I have a philosophy of running things into the ground before I replace them, and since I have had, up until now, access to more modern and powerful PCs at work, I had not been too worried about replacing my aging home computer.
All going well, I should be up and running using Windows XP, on a new super chunky PC by early next week. I am now waiting to see how XP compares to NT4, as XP is based on NT4. Obviously there will be a few degrees of difference in terms of technology advances between the two operating systems, but it is stability I am more interested in.
In the almost four years I was running NT4, the system only crashed two times. I consider that an exemplary track record, given the OS (Windows 95) I used prior to migrating to NT4 used to crash at least two times a day.
Originally published Monday 4 August 2003.
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