I'm an Australian, based in the Washington, DC, area of the United States. I spend a lot of time there with Jasmine, Australia's best-known speedsolver of the Rubik's Cube. Prior to the US, Jasmine and I were based in London, UK. We have also lived previously in the United States and Australia.

I have worked for an Australian business rules and compliance company since 1999 in Australia, the US and the UK. I have also lectured in IT and Law related topics at King's College, London, and at The Australian National University.

I have some more information and a list of publications available (pop-up window).

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- February 2007
- January 2007
- All posts from 2006
- All posts from 2005
- All posts from 2004

These are a few of my favourite links:
- Jasmine's site
- Jasmine's blog
- Mikal
- Daveydweeb
- Beth
- Lyn
- Doug
- Marissa
- Lisaloha
- David (Greenomics)
- Paul's Ramblings (music)

Hits since 1 Sep 2004
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[/Popular culture] permanent link

Am I unique?

Friends in Sydney suggested to me over the weekend that I may be the only person in the world who has:

• not read anything by Dan Brown (author of The Da Vinci Code);
• not seen the film Titanic; and
• not yet finished the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I'm pretty good at obscure entertainment references -- but obviously less good at the stuff everyone (except me) knows!

Update: OK, maybe I'm not unique. My brother, Michael, saw this post and responds:

Peter hasn't read anything by Dan Brown, seen Titanic, or finished the last book in the Harry Potter series. I can go one better, I haven't done any of those things, ready any Harry Potter, seen any Harry Potter movies, read any of the Lord of the Rings, or seen any of the Lord of the Rings films.

So, it seems I am out of touch with the pulse of mass-market culture, but Michael has found a whole different planet where he can live. I think his planet involves Linux. He knows much more about Linux than I do.

[/Cyberspace/IP] permanent link

Visual history of music sampling

I just found this interesting article on Boing Boing. It links to a Java application that allows you to browse through an amazing network of identified samples in recorded music.

[/Australia] permanent link

Bondurbia

One of my old friends from The Australian National University has just started a blog called Bondurbia.

Current topics of discussion include Australian politics and, more importantly, Australian Idol and The X Factor.

[/Australia] permanent link

The ANU Union Asian Bistro: never again

Last week, I gave my twin brother and sister, who are still at school in Canberra, a lift to a school debating competition. The venue was a lecture theatre at The Australian National University. The twins had not had dinner, so I thought I would get them something at the university.

We went to the Asian Bistro in the ANU Union Building. Big mistake.

I travel a lot -- all around the world. I eat out all the time, in all different price and quality brackets. And even with all this experience to use for comparison, it was spectacular to see how poor the Asian Bistro is.

As the twins served themselves from the buffet, we could see the food congealing away. Some of it had a delightful film across the top. It's little wonder that at around 6 p.m. -- when one might expect a lot of students still to be around the campus -- there was hardly anyone in the room.

My sister wasn't very hungry, so she had a small plate of food -- about the size of a tea saucer -- and barely put any food on the plate. The bill for this plate alone was around A$7. David had a slightly larger plate but not very much food. His plate cost about A$9. Compare this with some of Canberra City's Chinese restaurants, where you can get a large plate of freshly prepared food, of much higher quality, brought to a table for only a little more than what we paid at the Asian Bistro.

Not to mention cheap Asian restaurants in places that should be far more expensive. Even in London, in the right part of town (e.g. around Tooting), we can get a sit-down main meal at an Indian restaurant for under £5 (A$12.50)... although, to be fair, you could also spend much more than that in other parts of London, which is one of the most expensive cities in the world.