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
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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
500929
Site design by Jasmine
Sun, 03 Dec 2006 [Australian eastern time]
[/Popular culture/Rubik] permanent link
Jasmine and I attended the UK Rubik's Open in Leeds on 18 November, 2006.
Jasmine has posted her own entry about the event, including some links to results. She had a great event, including several personal best times and Australian national records. I entered the Rubik's Clock and Rubik's Magic events. Because Jasmine does not put much effort into the Magic puzzle, my average time for solving the Magic in the competition (3.75 seconds) was an Australian record!
I have now posted my competition photos online.
I also have a video (beware: ~38 MB download!) of Jasmine racing the Rubot II cube-solving robot. I have a couple of other videos, too, which I may post at a later date.
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture Rubik Rubik's+Cube
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 [Australian eastern time]David's site links to Wikipedia Weekly -- an interesting weekly (audio) discussion of Wikipedia issues.
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Wikipedia Wikipedia+Weekly
CrunchNotes recently ran an article with the title "Best Way To Be Ignored" and the following text:
Submit a company for review that starts off with:
“_____.com Leads Web 2.0 Revolution with New Unrivalled Revenue-Sharing Social Networking Site
– In one of the most monumental projects ever created for the Internet, _____.com has launched a never-before-seen user-powered news site, positioning the company to achieve success of MySpace and YouTube proportions.”
This made me smile. Then I used Google to search for that text and found that there really are people making exactly those claims.
As someone who is somewhat involved in marketing and PR (although my main job is doing other things), this highlights the omni-present tension between wanting to make big claims and needing some evidence to show that you are actually delivering on your claims. A reference site where someone is doing what you are trying to sell is invaluable! Unfortunately for the market, there is a lot of hype and a lot of noise, which sometimes makes it very difficult to find the companies, products and services that would most meet a need.
Of course, I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the fundamentals of a company which runs PR like the example above... but this PR is ultimately not as helpful as something that refers extenisvely to solid performance metrics which show definite value. Sometimes people just need to work more on their press releases.
Technorati tags for this post: Business marketing public+relations PR CrunchNotes
Sat, 25 Nov 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
Penguin Books let you design your own cover
Penguin Books is shipping an awesome new range of classic books with blank covers -- so you can draw your own! What a cool idea!
According to consumer research conducted on what factors matter to people when they decide whether or not to pick up a book in a bookshop, the cover design comes out as most important. So this might be the stupidest thing we've ever done.
(Via Boing Boing)
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture Penguin
One of my brothers, David, has recently started a blog in which he muses on all matters Wikipedia.
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace David+Still Wikipedia
Sat, 28 Oct 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Hands get dirty in American politics
The New York Times has a great article today about US politicians who shake hands, but are concerned about all the germs they acquire in the process. Purell Hand Sanitizer is the answer, according to the article. I'm not convinced.
I have only ever seen so many hygiene products in the United States, but I have not seen anyone die from touching another person in Europe or Australia. Could it be that effective product marketing manufactures demand, and this stuff is just marketed well in the US?
Technorati tags for this post: America Purell politics hygiene
Sun, 22 Oct 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Last year was a good year for apples
Completely by accident, while looking through Technorati, I found an article which suggests the apples we buy in supermarkets can be up to a year old, due to the processes used to extend their life after picking!
Technorati tags for this post: Science food nutrition
The United States is apparently cracking down on Australians who want to import Vegemite! It seems that the folate content in Vegemite violates US standards, and Australian expatriates in the US will lose part of their identity as a result!
Technorati tags for this post: America Vegemite folate
[/Popular culture] permanent link
Salaries of fictitious TV characters
AOL's Salary Center has compiled a list of the salaries which popular TV characters would earn. Would you pay Homer Simpson US$67,422?
(Via Best Week Ever)
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture salary Homer+Simpson
[/United Kingdom] permanent link
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported concern that the Tower of London should be placed on UNESCO's Heritage in Danger list.
When I read it, the article was not what I expected. The threat to the Tower comes not from millions of tourists and tacky souvenirs, but from the development of the city around the Tower, which is overshadowing the site with skyscrapers and modern buildings.
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom UNESCO Tower+of+London
I have disabled comments on this site due to comment spam. I have received around 4,000 spam comments in the last couple of weeks, and I have been spending more time checking them than writing content for the site!
I have experimented over a year or more with various methods of blocking spam for Blosxom. I may reinstate comments if I can find a method that works with my Blosxom installation, without too much effort to filter comments manually.
Technorati tags for this post: Technical Blosxom comment+spam
Sun, 01 Oct 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Bootstrapping new IT companies
I just found an awesome (although now slightly old) article from the San Francisco Chronicle about young engineers starting IT companies in the US (linked from GoGoGetter). The article describes its protagonists as living and working in cramped communal quarters to focus on their ideas and build companies quickly:
It's the quintessential post-adolescent male fantasy of the business world: a grungy remix of the "Revenge of the Nerds" frat house with bunk beds and Snoopy sheets, a refrigerator packed with soda and beer, and a garage that doubles as the company break room, where employees can channel surf from the couch or take a dip in the inflatable swimming pool. There is no firewall between life and work for these young entrepreneurs...
The article singles out three start-ups for attention: Meetro, Box.net and HubPages -- and they actually all have pretty cool ideas.
When I first started out in IT, we used to joke about how our company's software engineers would claim they could produce anything (or so it seemed) in a weekend, and how they would hide in an office, accepting only flat food (pizzas) under the door. From the Chronicle article, it seems this dream is alive and well around Silicon Valley today.
This reminds me of some interesting discussions I have had with people around London. You would think that in a city of London's size (7.5 million people in Greater London, which makes it the largest city in Europe), it would be possible to find any opportunity. However, I have never heard of this style of garage-based startup over here. More generally, it is interesting to see how the United States really is the biggest hub around in IT, with even European companies like SAP focusing more and more of their corporate operations in the US.
GoGoGetter has a cool idea based on all of this: a Big Brother-like reality show for future IT entrepreneurs:
They’d be required to live and work together in a small geek abode, ala the Meetro commune, and given, say, $10K in seed money to survive on over the next several months. These would be people from disparate backgrounds rather than friends, who have the potential to either gel or clash mightily.
I would watch it!
Technorati tags for this post: Business Web+2.0 start-up Meetro Box.net HubPages Silicon+Valley London GoGoGetter
Different web advertising models
Robert Scoble argues that not all web advertising is created equal. Flashy, colourful banner advertising, based on a cost per thousand impressions, is ineffective, he says -- and a discretionary expense which businesses will curb when they need to watch costs. However, he claims that search-based text advertising, charged on a click-through model, does have an impact on web users -- and that Google is becoming a Yellow Pages for the internet. He uses this argument to explain a recent large share price drop at Yahoo!, which was not matched by Google.
This is an interesting argument, and more nuanced than the common street wisdom I often hear, which holds that web advertising is a complete waste of time. However, Google must still be keen to find a way to expand its revenue beyond advertising, by making money from all the other cool ideas it produces.
Technorati tags for this post: Business Google Yahoo advertising Robert+Scoble
Sat, 30 Sep 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
Some guy called Nate had a lot of spare time one Halloween. Check out his efforts to make a Wolverine costume with retractable claws!
(Via Digg)
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture Wolverine
Wikipedia: A tool for character assassination?
Dave Winer suggests that Wikipedia can be a well adapted tool for character assassination, where articles are used to defame people. He links to a Guardian article by Seth Finkelstein which considers the question: should people be able to have entries about them removed from Wikipedia, or would that be an admission that collective editing by volunteers cannot guarantee fairness or accuracy?
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Wikipedia Dave+Winer Seth+Finkelstein
[/Publications] permanent link
Rules Technology Summit, Washington, DC, November 2006
I will be presenting a paper at the Rules Technology Summit, Washington DC, in November. The paper is called "Integrating Large Enterprise Application Software Deployments with Business Rules", and I will co-present it with a colleague from RuleBurst.
Technorati tags for this post: Publications Rules+Technology+Summit business+rules RuleBurst
Fri, 29 Sep 2006 [Australian eastern time]Seth Godin recently published some thoughts on the fortunes and management of the Ford Motor Company. As he points out, it's easy to kick someone who is down, but his comments about the company's short-term focus at the expense of long-term strategy are interesting. Here's a little extract from the full piece:
Making cars is not an unprofitable undertaking, unless you insist on making it one. At just about every turn the company ignored the market, alienated their workforce, distanced themselves from their distribution network, vilified their customers and chose short-term expediency ahead of long-term change. They lobbied to keep gas mileage standards high (doing the opposite would have increased the market for cars). They lobbied to keep SUVs unregulated (and got addicted to a short-term high-profit alternative to cars) and they bought remarkable brands and made them average.
Technorati tags for this post: Business Seth+Godin Ford
Tue, 26 Sep 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Is the Wikipedia model broken?
Does Wikipedia really work the way it is meant to? Is it really an amorphous community of people working together to promote knowledge? In the past, there has been plenty of discussion about situations where Wikipedia's information has been compromised, even though the overall standard is very high. (See an earlier post from this blog for some examples.)
Michael Arrington has some interesting comments about cliques and ulterior political motives on the Wikipedia site. Here's an extract:
While wikipedia appears to be open to all, I’ve seen numerous examples of changes getting immediately deleted for what appears to be political reasons rather than the pursuit of pure knowledge. And I’ve also seen people be attacked for making changes that appear to be factual and correct.
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Wikipedia Arrington CrunchNotes
Jasmine has discovered Zoom Clouds, and she thought I should have one... so she designed it and added it to the left-hand navigation bar on this site. It's fun. It displays words and phrases from my posts and then links to them.
Technorati tags for this post: Technical Zoom+Clouds
Avoiding lost baggage (and contents!) in the USA
The editors at Boing Boing often criticise US aviation security. In a recent article, they point to a technique which allegedly allows checked bags on US flights to be locked, and also supposedly ensures the security of the bags' contents:
Many airports won't let you effectively lock your suitcases when you fly, and the new limits on carry-on luggage thanks to moisture-terror-hysteria mean it's open season for unscrupulous TSA employees and baggage handlers who want to help themselves to expensive cameras and other valuable in checked bags.
But once you add a gun -- even a starter pistol -- to your luggage, it gets extra-locked, gains new tracking privileges, and is subject to heightened scrutiny all the way to your destination.
Boing Boing links to Bruce Schneier's blog on this topic.
I can't vouch for the wisdom or effectiveness of this... but it's definitely not an idea I would have thought of myself!
Technorati tags for this post: America aviation security TSA Transportation+Security+Administration Boing+Boing
Sun, 24 Sep 2006 [Australian eastern time]What a cool idea! Someone has invented a USB data key (called the Flashbag) which inflates as you fill it with data!
(Via Tech Swarm)
Technorati tags for this post: Toys USB Flashbag
Sun, 27 Aug 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Credit where it's due] permanent link
Happy birthday, Jasmine!
Tim Harford, of BBC TV's Trust Me: I'm an Economist has written an interesting article on product sabotage for the BBC website. The article talks about a common problem for businesses who want to sell something: they want to sell at the maximum price, but different people have different prices they are willing to pay because each group values different aspects of the product. The trick is to work out what a product is worth to each group in the market and to determine pricing strategies for the separate groups accordingly. Each pricing strategy is based on what is valuable to a particular group. In some cases, customers will demand a lower-priced version, and vendors will remove or disable features to justify a lower price, without cannibalising their own high-end market. This is called "product sabotage" -- but it has the positive effect of making products available to the widest range of people.
Haford describes different ways that businesses can meet this challenge. For example, Starbucks is described as having a smaller "short" coffee which is sold cheaply but not listed on menus; and IBM is described as having sold a downmarket printer which was actually the same as a more expensive printer, but with some of its features turned off.
There is an interesting discussion of the article on Digg. Comments range from predictable complaints about Starbuck's, to a comment that it is best to buy the largest coffee sizes because they are cheaper per millilitre, to a comment that smaller cappuccinos have better foam, to a rant about the evils of taxation, which is said to distort businesses' pricing models!
Technorati tags for this post: Business Tim+Harford Trust+Me+I'm+An+Economist economics
Sat, 26 Aug 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
The internet is a force for democracy
Who said the internet isn't a great force for democracy, where you don't need money or status to get noticed?
The Register reports that Paris Hilton's new YouTube channel has been outpaced and outclassed by the musings of an old guy called Peter, who uses the screen name Geriatric1927. According to the article:
Paris has 2,549 subscribers while Peter has 23,267. Ouch. Peter's videos have been watched 720,418 times while Ms Hilton has managed just 285,572.
Unlike Hilton in her video past, Geriatric1927 even keeps his cardigan on.
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture YouTube Paris+Hilton Geriatric1927
Sun, 20 Aug 2006 [Australian eastern time]Announced in The Register this week: an Oregon crop circle proves that aliens use Firefox as their preferred browser.
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Firefox The+Register
Inspired by school experiments with sodium
I used to like school chemistry. I was quite good at it, but my enjoyment was also partly about the explosions and other excitement of the lab. Dropping a tiny sliver of sodium into water and watching it burn is one demonstration I remember well from when I was 12 years old at school.
I'm not the only one who remembers this demonstration. Theodore Gray has a series of photos and videos of his adventures creating really spectacular effects with sodium. His site recently rated a mention in the UK's Guardian newspaper, although Gray's photos and videos are not particularly new.
Technorati tags for this post: Science sodium The+Guardian
Sun, 13 Aug 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
I was probably lucky to have just finished a few weeks of intensive travel (Belgium, the United States, Denmark) before the announcement a few days of a plot to attack aircraft flying between the United Kingdom and the United States. Jasmine and I were thinking of booking a leisure trip in a couple of weeks, but we may opt for a train trip, given the ongoing chaos and restrictions at British airports.
In addition to all the discussions about terrorism itself, there are some interesting threads appearing online about the implications of these events for the travel industry. For example, Seth Godin writes on his blog:
When you need an additional 90 minutes, can't bring your laptop (or even a book on some routes) and can't have a bottle of water, the calculus for most trips is fundamentally changed. Years ago, Tom Peters argued hard and long for the value of showing up, of being there in person, of establishing a face to face relationship with the person on the other side.
The prevalance of online video, constant skype connections and the multiple threads of data we get online, combined with the enormous overhead that flying now brings might just change the story for a long time to come.
The Times has also started to explore this idea in detail. For example, it ran articles on Saturday about the deserted duty-free stores which are suffering from hand luggage restrictions, flight cancellations and delays at security; about both airlines and travel insurers refusing to accept liability for expensive items like laptops and iPods which now must be checked as hold luggage under the current rules in the UK; and about the effect on business of being unable to work on planes and having to hand in mobile phones before security. The last-mentioned article quotes an estimate that the British economy will lose £3.2 million per hour as a result of current restrictions!
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom terrorism airline Seth+Godin
Sun, 30 Jul 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Pollution of online social networks
My brother, Michael, asks: what do you do when people start giving false descriptions of themselves in an online social networking environment? He writes:
LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. It's all about who you know, and who you have worked with. The basic idea seems to be that recording all that information will result in new business opportunities, as well as referrals to jobs et cetera. When someone who claims to have worked for your company joins LinkedIn, you get email asking you if you know them.
So, what do you do when you look in the company address book, and it's quite clear that they don't work for your company? There doesn't seem to be any way in the UI to point out that someone is lying. How annoying.
I can see how this is annoying, but I also don't see how networking with people online is really any different to doing it in the physical world. Online, using tools like LinkedIn, referrals are important: someone you know will often introduce new contacts to you, and these contacts are often more reliable or more receptive than ones you find yourself. The same principle applies in the physical world.
I imagine that often this would temper the effects of false claims on a service like LinkedIn as people who just make everything up are less likely to get good referrals. And imagine what a nightmare it would be for someone to moderate a huge online service like LinkedIn every time someone made a claim about someone else's entry!
In fact, from my limited experience of the service, it appears that LinkedIn mostly works on this basis. You can search other people's networks of people as long as you have connections to the people. However, if you want to connect with someone in another person's list, you normally need to seek a referral from the people between you and your target in the chain of connections. The situation (described in Michael's post) where LinkedIn emails you about other people in your company is not the standard way of linking to people.
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace LinkedIn
[/United Kingdom] permanent link
I have not yet got around to doing anything more with my own Farnborough photos, but this photo from John Nevill's website is amazing!
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom Farnborough
Mon, 24 Jul 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
Farnborough International Air Show
A couple of friends and I went to the Farnborough International Air Show, just outside London, on Sunday. We spent almost all of our time there watching the outdoor aerial displays, from fantastic vantage points right by the runway. There were all sorts of aircraft being flown, including civilian jets and new and old military aircraft. The performances by some of the military jets were amazing, but in some ways the Airbus A340-600 and A380-800 were more amazing. Military jets are meant to have amazing performance. However, civilian jets are normally flown pretty sedately with passengers on board, and they can look completely different with pilots showing off at an air show!
Here are some of my photos from today. I will probably add some more in a separate post if time permits later in the week.
Above: The Airbus A380-800 banks steeply.
Above: The Airbus A380-800.
Above: The Airbus A380-800 close up on the ground.
Above: The Cookie Monster family travel with me (almost) everywhere to pose for photos. They were keen to see how they may be flying in the future, so I showed them the A380.
Above: Not a conventional move for a helicopter!
Above: The RAF's Red Arrows early in their display.
Above: The Red Arrows in formation overhead.
Above: The Red Arrows: two pilots getting very close in their jet trainers.
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom Farnborough A380 A340 Red+Arrows
Even though I have a good laptop and all the software I really need, I still find myself using Windows Notepad to take brief notes on some things. Sometimes, I find other people like me.
It seems that Jeff Sanquist is one of these, and he has blogged a cool -- if somewhat nerdy -- Notepad trick. I like it!
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Notepad Tweaks Windows+Secrets Jeff+Sandquist
Thu, 20 Jul 2006 [Australian eastern time]With current concern about terrorism, it's understandable that people want to identify critical infrastructure and protect it.
However, a column by Danny Westneat in The Seattle Times suggests that sometimes it's difficult to understand the criteria that are used to identify critical infrastructure. He lists a shopping mall, casinos, restaurants. He questions the extent to which pork-barrelling has come into play to increase the list of top terrorist sites from 160 a few years ago to 77,000 now.
Technorati tags for this post: America Seattle+Times Danny+Westneat
Back in April, I wrote about Cadbury's attempts to protect its distinctive purple colour using trademark law.
Michael has posted an update on this story on his site.
Technorati tags for this post: Australia Cadbury trademark
Mon, 03 Jul 2006 [Australian eastern time]Finally, after years of encouragement from Jasmine, I have started to use a Pocket PC. In fact, I am writing this on a London Underground train en route to an afternoon out in Richmond.
I don't know why it took me so long to embrace the Pocket PC. Jasmine has had one spare (an iPAQ) for ages -- since she upgraded hers when we were still in the United States. Now I have started using one, I don't know how I held out so long: it's so cool to have a subset of my laptop life in a smaller package that I can pull out quickly if I need to!
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace Pocket+PC iPAQ
Mon, 26 Jun 2006 [Australian eastern time]
European Business Rules Conference
Recently, I attended the European Business Rules Conference in London. My company, RuleBurst, was exhibiting there, and I also co-presented a paper. It was an interesting event over several days, and Jeffrey Schlimmer of Microsoft has published a good summary (day 1; day 2) on his blog (although I think the attendance numbers are underestimated somewhat in his report).
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace business+rules European+Business+Rules+Conference RuleBurst Jeffrey+Schlimmer
Sun, 25 Jun 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
I read last night on Boing Boing that Sealand, an (arguably) independent state (actually an old military platform) off the British coast has been badly affected by fire.
One Boing Boing reader quoted in the post suggests that Sealand's claims to sovereignty will not have been helped by the fact that the only person on the platform at the time of the fire had to be evacuated. The large number of British rescue personnel involved in the recent incident also exceeded the population of the platform
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom Sealand
Fri, 02 Jun 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
An unusual reason for a cancelled flight
I was stuck for a few hours in Brussels today, after my mid-afternoon flight back to London was cancelled. I like Brussels... but unfortunately I had to spend my extra few hours at the airport, which is not the best part of Belgium.
The reason my flight was cancelled? London City Airport was closed due to a World War II bomb being discovered nearby! Interestingly, if you read the BBC story about the discovery, there are links to other stories about old WWII bombs being discovered in the UK!
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom London+City+Airport World+War+II
Mon, 29 May 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
Please do not use permanent markers
It seems that running a complex, integrated transport system is not the only thing that Transport for London needs to worry about. In fact, TfL clearly shares some problems with just about every other office in the world. About a week ago, I spotted the following message on one of the whiteboards used at Edgware Road Circle Line Station to alert passengers to any issues on the Tube network.
Please do not use permanent markers. Ta.
Technorati tags for this post: United Kingdom London London+Underground Transport+for+London Edgware+Road
Sun, 28 May 2006 [Australian eastern time]
"Almost a home run" doesn't count
I have been working in business development-related areas for a number of years now. I don't know how many times I have met people from companies who have "just about" sewn up a major deal, which "will" make their company huge.
Seth Godin has an interesting post on this topic. He refers to a conversation where:
Just got a phone call from someone in the UK. He was in Buffalo, NY, excited to share the news about a meeting he just left. This was the beginning of his breakthrough, he said. 400 stores around the country would be carrying his new product (up from zero). It was (about to be) a home run.
The problem is that these deals often don't work out. Every company wants a huge deal to make growth easy... but in fact, these are hard work and quite frustrating to pursue. Godin points out the importance of smaller, but more frequent, deals which he refers to as "singles" (to continue the baseball analogy):
Singles are less thrilling and require way too much work, but they build on each other. Over time, if you grow by 10 or 15% every week or month, you grow, reliably. And that steady growth transforms into every faster growth.
This reminds me of an interesting article which was run in The Register about a week ago. The Register reported that Intel was not the only candidate to supply chips for new Apple models. It points to PA Semi as another candidate:
PA Semi -- a maker of low-power Power processors -- formed a tight relationship with Apple -- one meant to result in it delivering chips for Apple's notebook line and possibly desktops. The two companies shared software engineering work, trying to see how Apple's applications could be ported onto PA Semi's silicon. When word leaked out that Apple had signed on with Intel, it shocked the PA Semi staff, according to multiple sources.
"PA Semi was counting on that deal," said one source. "They had lots of guys walking around in a daze when Apple went to Intel. They had no idea that would actually happen."
For people working in marketing and sales in growing high-tech companies, this type of situation is incredibly frustrating -- particularly if the potential deal means more to them than it would to the customer. But I guess that is also why work in these companies can be so rewarding, as it's pretty satisfying when the big deals come through!
Technorati tags for this post: Business Seth+Godin marketing PA+Semi
Sat, 27 May 2006 [Australian eastern time]
The 25 worst tech products of all time
PC World has published a cool list of the 25 worst tech products of all time.
(Via Slashdot)
Technorati tags for this post: Cyberspace PC+World worst+tech
The Australian energy debate... and let's all drive nuclear-powered cars!
David has interesting posts on his site about the Australian debates over wind and nuclear power (you may need to scroll down a little). I had never realised until very recently how controversial wind power is!
Meanwhile, I read last weekend that Ford worked on a nuclear-powered concept car, the Nucleon, in the 1950s. Wikipedia has a photo of the mock-up vehicle, and it is good to see the passenger compartment separated from the reactor for safety reasons... but you would spill a lot more than oil on the road if you had a serious accident!
Technorati tags for this post: Australia wind+power nuclear+power nuclear Ford
Mon, 22 May 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
Jasmine and I have just returned home after seeing the movie version of The Da Vinci Code. As I have proclaimed previously, I have not read the book, which may have set me apart from every single other person in the cinema. I thought the film was pretty entertaining as a standalone movie -- much better than I had expected -- escapist, but still worth my Sunday night.
Technorati tags for this post: Popular culture Da+Vinci+Code movie cinema
Experimenting with Technorati tags
I've decided to start with Technorati tags on this site, with a little help from a Blosxom plugin which my brother wrote.
Technorati tags for this post: Technical Technorati
Sun, 14 May 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
I have been back in London for the past several days after a good trip back to Australia, which was preceded by a really enjoyable Easter in Switzerland. More about what I have been up to in future posts to this blog!
It seems that NASA's Ames Research Center is better prepared for abnormal events than my workplace. See, for example, this list of required bureaucratic steps to deal with Viking raids on the Center. To quote the preamble from this important policy resource:
Since the decline of the Carolingian Empire in the 10th century, Building 245 of the NASA Ames Research Center has been subject to periodic raids by Viking marauders. These marauders generally attack in search of gold, religious icons, and other forms of plunder. The NASA Ames Barbarian Affairs Office has established the following procedures for defense against Viking raids...
(Via Mikal)
Thu, 27 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]Chocolate manufacturer Cadbury doesn't own the colour purple, according to an Australian legal decision mentioned in a news.com.au article. According to the article:
The company, which uses a dark shade of purple in its global marketing effort, launched legal action in 2003 in a bid to sue Australian-based confectioner Darrell Lea over its use of similar colours.Cadbury had objected to Darrell Lea's use of various shades of purple in Darrell Lea's store signage, uniforms and product packaging.
This is not the only case of an Australian company attempting to restrict other businesses' use of particular colours. Another recent article (in The Australian) mentions the Cadbury litigation, and also a dispute between Woolworths and BP over use of the colour green to sell fuel.
Tue, 25 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]I have written previously about some ground-breaking American research (see here and here), but The Register points out that European scientists are also at the forefront of solving real problems. The Register describes some Dutch research to look for significant patterns in blog content. What were some of the findings? To quote The Register:
The team discovered that the LiveJournal label "drunk" becomes increasingly popular each weekend. And around Valentine's Day, "there is spike in the numbers of bloggers who use the labels 'loved' or 'flirty', but also an increase in the number who report feeling 'lonely'."
It gets better.
The team also noticed that on the weekend of the publication of the most recent Harry Potter book, bloggers used "words like 'Harry', 'Potter', 'shop' and 'book'," PhD student Gilad Mishne reveals.
When I finished university, I was urged by one of my heads of department and other university staff to apply for a PhD scholarship. They said I had a strong chance of receiving funding, and that I had some important things to say. I sold out and entered the commercial world instead... but look at the fantastic research opportunities I have missed as a result!
Fri, 21 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Back in Australia for a brief visit
Jasmine and I arrived back in Australia a couple of days ago for a brief visit. The immediate reason for our visit is that everyone is getting married! We have an Australian wedding to attend on 22 April, and we were invited to one other wedding and an engagement party on the same day in other places in Australia. Jasmine also has another wedding to attend in May, when I will be back in London.
Wed, 12 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]
The nuclear reactor in mom's backyard
Some people obviously have more spare time than me. David Hahn was busted in 1994 trying to build a nuclear breeder reactor in his mother's backyard, using low-level radioactive material gathered from everyday materials. (Via Digg.)
Sun, 09 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]
The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine
Here, it is: the paper that started the Google phenomenon, by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page! (Via Digg; The Profit Papers.)
Mon, 03 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
On Sunday afternoon I headed up to Putney Bridge to watch the start of the Boat Race: the annual rowing challenge between Oxford and Cambridge Universities. The social spectacle -- thousands of people lining the River Thames, many of them drinking, watching and cheering for the start -- seemed more interesting than the race itself, particularly as the rowers were out of sight within seconds anyway. For those who are deeply concerned about such things, Oxford won.
Sun, 02 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Hidden Braille Messages on the National Museum of Australia building
Miranda Devine has written a column in the Sydney Morning Herald which describes how the architect of the National Museum of Australia, which was opened in 2001, wanted to achieve a subversive "one in the eye for John Howard [Australia's Prime Minister]". To this end, the building had Braille writing built into the crazy modern design of its exterior.
The messages only remained for 10 days, and were then obscured or changed by management. Some examples quoted from the article:
"Forgive us our genocide" was one of the messages intended as a reproach to John Howard's Government for refusing to apologise for the mistreatment of Aborigines by previous generations.
"Sorry" was written in braille several times as well as "Resurrection city", a reference to a 1968 civil rights protest in Washington DC. Other messages were: "God knows", "She'll be right", "Mate", "Who is my neighbour?", "Time will tell", "Good as gold" and "Love is blind".
Unfortunately, the Sydney Morning Herald link may require a free registration.
Lhiannee has a post that links to several online April Fool's Day pranks, including the article I mentioned previously about China buying Google. I like the April Fool's Google Romance!
Sat, 01 Apr 2006 [Australian eastern time]Today's Register contains a detailed and amusing article that makes new claims about Google's involvement with China.
It reports, among other things, that:
Google announced the transfer of 140m shares of Class B stock to a new entity owned by the Chinese Ministry of Information in typically forthright style. The news was disclosed in a Captcha graphic on its Google Canteen Menu weblog; investors had to click a hidden link to see the announcement, and then decode a stenographically-hidden message watermarked into the JPG file.
The article described the Google acquisition as an important part of China's strategy to acquire key planks of the United States' information infrastructure.
Look at the date on the article before taking it too seriously.
Mon, 27 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time]If you always wanted to make your life look more like something from Thomas the Tank Engine, then help is close to hand. Here's a site with instructions to treat photos of real places so they look like you have been taking pictures of your train set or other toy models. (Via Scobleizer.)
Sun, 26 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
Jasmine doesn't always beat me at Scrabble
Jasmine doesn't always beat me at Scrabble. On Saturday night, at the pub, I pulled out a rare performance and beat her (410 points to 370).
We had a more normal occurrence slightly later, when a group of punters who had seen Jasmine with her cube came up and asked for a demonstration. See below for a fuzzy mobile phone photo of Jasmine's admirers from across the pub.
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Here's a badly dated 1992 video from the US Software Publishers' Association that urges people not to copy software. It features the lamest rap you will ever see or hear. There's an article about the video in Wikipedia. (Via Cruel.com.)
Sat, 25 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time]This is pretty cool: an online brain speed test, which measures the response to changing sounds. It's part of a marketing campaign to sell something, but I'm afraid I didn't even look to see what I was meant to buy. The test is fun, though! (Via Digg; CNET News.com.)
Mon, 20 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
Paul F., a friend in the Washington, DC, area has done some work to rebadge and relaunch his blog site. It has a focus on weird and wonderful, often obscure music. It's worth a look.
Sun, 19 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
I just spent Saturday afternoon reading Stiff by Shane Maloney. The book was a gift from Lyn some time ago, when I was based in Washington, DC. I really like this book -- for its portrayal of 1980s Melbourne; for the way the main character, Murray Whelan, bumbles his way through a low-level political career and a murder mystery; and for its amusing description of local-level Australian politics. I think I should hit Amazon and get some more of Shane Maloney's books.
Computer Networks: the Heralds of Resource Sharing
Computer Networks: the Heralds of Resource Sharing is a 1972 documentary about work which much later led to the internet we know now. It is interesting partly for the retro value, and partly because a lot of the ideas in the video are still valid today. The basic structure of the net is still as described in the documentary, and the film predicts a number of future applications of the internet, including internet banking. You can view the entire documentary on Google Video.
Sat, 11 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Popular culture] permanent link
This sidewalk art is pretty amazing.
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George Lucas predicts the death of the big budget movie
George Lucas has told the New York Daily News that he foresees the death of mega-budget movie-making (Slashdot article and discussion). Lucas claims this is bad for the movie business but good for art, and that in the future indie films will come to the fore.
This is the sort of issue that Lyn used to write about on her site. Those were the days!
American researchers save humanity
This is a great story: in a world with war, famine, plague and assorted other problems to solve, at least we now know that absence can make the glass glow fondly, thanks to researchers at MIT!
Tue, 07 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time][/United Kingdom] permanent link
If you can't use an iPod, run a country instead
The Register reports that Tony Blair can't control his iPod but can run a country. How does that work?
Sun, 05 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Are ugly websites more successful?
Here's an interesting question, posed on Scobleizer: can ugly websites be more successful? Maybe they are less slick, but can be more functional; and are they somehow more trustworthy because they appear less corporate?
Sat, 04 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time]
I often confuse universities and clothing
Universities and clothing are confusingly similar. At least that's the implication of this extract from Technometria:
CIO Magazine recently honored Utah’s Neumont University as a “Bold 100” winner. Neumont used to be called Northface until Northface clothing decided that people couldn’t keep clothing and education straight and asked them to rename themselves. They’re a for-profit college that focuses graduating software developers.
It reminds me of the old geek joke (not true, of course) about Sun Microsystems asking the island of Java to rename itself to avoid confusion with the Java programming language.
Fri, 03 Mar 2006 [Australian eastern time]The English version of Wikipedia has now passed the 1,000,000 article mark!
This is cool: Encyclopodia (found via Boing Boing) gives you highlights of Wikipedia on an iPod. I can't vouch that I would personally use it... but it's still cool!
Wikipedia as a discussion forum
There has been a lot of hype about Wikipedia's accuracy and neutrality. For example, US congressional staffers were recently accused of editing Wikipedia entries either to improve or to vandalise them. There have also been many cases of incorrect information going uncorrected for long periods.
A lot of the time, the information that is available on Wikipedia isn't too bad, but I wonder whether part of the site's value is actually as a discussion forum. There are plenty of topics where there is no absolute objective truth. Look, for example, at the discussion about Wikipedia's entry on publicly funded medicine. People of different political colours or with different experiences of health care can have wildly divergent opinions on a topic like this. There is only one version of the article online at any point in time -- but it's great that Wikipedia can also support a vibrant debate about that article in the background.
Tue, 28 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Cyberspace/IP] permanent link
Australian schools to pay copyright fees for using the web?
According to an article in Australian IT:
Schools have warned they will have to turn off the internet if a move by the nation's copyright collection society forces them to pay a fee every time a teacher instructs students to browse a website.
If this is true, it's pretty outrageous. Material is placed on the internet because it is meant to be public. If no one else has to pay for general internet use, why should schools?
Even if this were not the case, there is such a volume and diversity of material on the World Wide Web that it would be unreasonable to collect fees for all school web use and then disburse them to the quite limited author list maintained by a copyright collecting body.
I have not followed up this issue in detail -- I have just read the articles to which I am referring here -- but the supposed Australian proposal sounds quite bizarre based on what I have seen.
See also Boing Boing on this topic.
What if Microsoft did the design for the iPod box?
This cool animation shows a parody of Microsoft product packaging, suggesting that Microsoft could never execute the minimalist chic of an iPod box. (Spotted via links on my brother's site and Scobleizer.)
Mon, 27 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time]I had never heard of canned hunting until I saw a link about it on my brother's blog.
It doesn't quite sound like fair sport to me. According to the article (admittedly from a partisan lobby group) that my brother had found on the topic, in one recent well-publicised incident:
Upon [Vice President Cheney's] arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds. According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl.
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Toy Story 2 meets Requiem for a Dream
This is cool in a really spooky kind of way. Boing Boing is linking to various downloads of a creepy mash-up of Toy Story 2 and Requiem for a Dream in a mock trailer. I really like it!
Sun, 12 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Publications] permanent link
Andrew Inglis Clark and the evolution of the Australian Commonwealth
When I was back in Australia recently, I scanned a copy of my History Honours Thesis, 'Andrew Inglis Clark and the Evolution of the Australian Commonwealth' (PDF link).
I submitted it in June 1998. I was awarded the Mick Williams Prize for History at The Australian National University for my Honours year in 1998.
The PDF is a 2.25 MB file. I created it by scanning a hard copy rather than reassembling my old computer to retrieve the fonts I would need for a clean digital copy.
Sat, 11 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Gmail with your own domain name
Google has a beta program to host external organisations' email on its servers. The Gmail accounts can have the client organisations' domain name. Presumably, this will be part of a drive by Google to earn more revenue from sources other than advertising, which is currently the company's major revenue source (see this media commentary on Google's financial performance and revenue sources).
Mon, 06 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time]
Exciting (?) find: uranium in Australian water
David has an interesting post about uranium being identified in high concentrations in water in parts of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. He asks why people think this is so "exciting" given the likely link to health problems and the fact that it would be illegal to mine the uranium anyway.
Sun, 05 Feb 2006 [Australian eastern time]