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).
Send me an email
Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my site,
brought to you by the wonders of RSS.
- 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
500984
Site design by Jasmine
Mon, 19 Mar 2007 [Australian eastern time]
On BA, dead person flies first class
I've flown business class once or twice on British Airways. It was nice but ultimately nothing to remember forever. However, the premium service on some flights is evidently a little different.
Today's London Times has an article about British Airways moving a passenger who died on board a long-haul flight up to the first class cabin because there was nowhere else for the body on the aircraft:
A BRITISH Airways passenger travelling first class has described how he woke up on a long-haul flight to find that cabin crew had placed a corpse in his row.
It seems that the passenger was a woman in her 70s who died of natural causes, and each year around 10 passengers die in similar circumstances on BA flight. According to the article, airlines have differing practices for these situations.
(Via Boing Boing)
Technorati tags for this post: Travel British+Airways
Thu, 05 Jan 2006 [Australian eastern time][/Travel/Europe] permanent link
Edvard Munch's The Scream as graffiti
Here's a photo I just found going through some images on my computer. I took the photo in Oslo, Norway, in September 2005. I thought the idea of a graffiti depiction of The Scream was pretty cool.
Back in Australia, December 2005-January 2006
Jasmine and I are back in Australia! We arrived back in Canberra on Christmas Eve. We will be flying out again in a few weeks.
It's good to get some sun and some hot weather. We prefer the weather at this time of year in Australia to England! It will also be good to catch up with friends and family, and we will do some work here as well.
Tue, 27 Dec 2005 [Australian eastern time]After a very long absence, I've started working on this blog again. I have just spent quite a bit of time working on a new system for comments to avoid the huge comment spam issues I was having previously. I will shortly migrate messages from the old comments system over to the new one.
I will also shortly post an update on some of the exciting things I have been up to over the past several months!
Mon, 04 Jul 2005 [Australian eastern time]
Back in London
I'm now back in London after my whirlwind travels of the past
few weeks, which included a conference in
Amsterdam and a two-week business trip through several states of the United
States, with a quick side-trip to Canada. I am writing this entry early on
Monday morning, 4 July, in London, having slept what seems like almost all of
the time since I got back to Heathrow on Saturday night.
One of my first experiences of London upon returning was the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park. Unfortunately, I didn't quite get into the spirit of the concert, for two reasons:
- Jet lag and an urgent need to sleep. This was caused partly by the eight hours in time zones I had just crossed, partly by a busy few weeks, and partly by a toddler that kept screaming and kicking me on a red-eye connecting flight en route back to London.
- The London Live 8 concert was held in Hyde Park. This did not help with my solution to problem (i), above, as Hyde Park borders a number of residential areas in London, including the one where I live.
Having said all that, I do think Live 8 was a good idea... and it was typical of my timing that I was out of London for all but the closing stages of the concert, and also for the tennis at Wimbledon, which was held very close to my London office. Jasmine tells me that there were 500,000 extra people in London over the weekend thanks to these events.
Stay tuned for further updates now that I'm no longer on the road and can put stuff on this site again!
Fri, 24 Jun 2005 [Australian eastern time]I just thought I should point out that I have not forgotten or abandoned this website, in spite of weeks of silence. I'm just having a crazy time with work travel: a conference in Amsterdam, and now meetings in the US and Canada. I'm writing this from a hotel room in Ottawa, and I promise to put some actual content on the site once I have had some sleep and a chance to collect some thoughts -- hopefully soon!
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 [Australian eastern time][/Travel/Europe] permanent link
Czech Republic, and return visit to Australia
I'm typing this entry on a laptop at 30,000 feet, on Qantas Flight 2, somewhere between Bangkok and Sydney. Jasmine and I have just spent five days in Prague, in the Czech Republic, and now it's back to Australia for three weeks to catch up with family and friends. After that, we'll be heading back to the airport and returning to London.
We had a fantastic time in the Czech Republic, and it's definitely a place to which we would return, given the time and the opportunity.
The following are some photos I took during our stay, with some comments about what they show.
Above: The view across the Vltava River to the Lesser Town, featuring Prague's famous Charles Bridge in the foreground and the Castle and St Vitus' Cathedral in the background.
Above: The view across the Vltava River at night, taken from a similar viewpoint to the photo above.
Above: The famous Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town Square.
Above: The view across the Old Town Square at night, showing the Town Hall building.
Above: The view across the Old Town Square at night, taken looking away from the Town Hall Building, and looking up at the turrets of the Church of Our Lady Before Týn.
Above: Jasmine and I went on a day trip to the UNESCO-listed town of Kutná Hora. The most unusual thing we saw there was the Ossuary, in which the bones of 40,000 people are stored and displayed. The bones were collected in this way after an old cemetery (which had been very popular as it had been sprinkled with soil that pilgrims had brought back from the Holy Lands) had been closed. They were initially displayed in six pyramids, but in the 19th century, bones from two of the pyramids were fashioned into an array of decorations, including a famous chandelier, around the Ossuary building. The display of human remains in this way is meant to suggest that in death all people are equal. This photo shows the main view of the Ossuary just after entering, including the famous bone chandelier.
Above: This is one of the four pyramids of human bones that are still stored in the Ossuary. Note the decoration with a coat of arms fashioned from bones.
Above: These words are a memorial to the creator of the Ossuary in its current form.
Above: This is Prague's Television Tower, shot with a telephoto lens from Prague Castle. If you look closely you can see giant baby-shaped sculptures scaling the tower!
Above: This giant metronome sits on a hill overlooking Prague. It replaced a statue of Joseph Stalin that stood in this location during Communist rule. It's meant to demonstrate the passage of time, but Jasmine and I noticed that it seems to be switched off at night.
Above: Cookie Monster, who has accompanied me on most of my travels over the past couple of years, followed us to the Czech Republic. His biggest disappointment was not being able to pose for a photo in the Ossuary, where I had to tell him that discriminatory attitudes to Cookie Monsters might lead people to think he was being disrespectful!
Sun, 03 Oct 2004 [Australian eastern time]This isn't a very substantial post...
... but I thought I would link to Jasmine's post about what we did today -- Saturday 2 October in the US -- for any family and friends who are wondering.