new york park avenue: before and after

think how nice cities would be if we could get back to this...

http://www.naparstek.com/2005/12/history-of-new-york-city-public-space.php

New Google Cafeteria... mmmmm tasty...

the real killer (which they don't mention here), is the outdoor terrace with an *amazing* view!

New Google Cafeteria Crushes Competitors' Cafeterias

The fuel required to come up with those nifty holiday logo variations.Photo: Everett Bogue

About six weeks after its move south to the old Port Authority at 111 Eighth Avenue, Google's New York office finally has a cafeteria. (Don't worry, sympathetic searchers, the staffers' free lunch had been catered before this week.)

So what do you serve hungry programmers? Our mole slipped us an excerpt from Wednesday's inaugural menu.

Raw
Zucchini Pasta Marinara
Soft Tacos With Fresh Tomato Salsa
Beetroot-Marinated Tofu With Chile Scallion Glaze
Tempeh, White Beans, Tomato, Basil

Antipasta
Roast Butternut Squash With Cinnamon and Sage
Roast Eggplant
Roast Red Peppers
Grilled Chicken With Roast Apples and Curried Cashews

Chelsea Grill
Grilled Hanger Steak
Sauce Bordelaise
Pomme Frites
Sautéed Spinach, Garlic, Shallots, and Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

Home
(French theme)
Cassoulet, Toulouse Style
Beef Bourguignon
Pommes Gratinee
Byaldi

East
(Indian theme)
Braised Mangalore Salmon in Coconut Milk
Curried Chicken Legs With Potatoes and Tomatoes
Fried Chickpea Salad
Curried Organic Fingerling Potatoes

Earth and Water
Wild Striped Bass en Papillote

This wasn't just a fancy opener and then back to the burgers, either. Today our sated friend had London broil with grilled asparagus and an It's It ice cream sandwich imported from the West Coast.

one of the funniest things i've seen in a long time

warning: graphic and offensive :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tczU13W-dbY

The US government has gone too far!!!

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,20620744-953,00.html

worst congress ever

brilliant, though depressing article on the current state of american politics. cover story on rolling stone.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12055360/cover_story_time_to_go_inside_the_worst_congress_ever

my favorite line so far is:

"One gets the sense that Bush would have to drink the blood of Christian babies to inspire hearings in Congress -- and only then if he did it during a nationally televised State of the Union address and the babies were from Pennsylvania, where Senate Judiciary chairman Arlen Specter was running ten points behind in an election year. "

cool home run video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7--BKAFYEd4

zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Phaedrus remembered a line from Thoreau: "You never gain something but that you lose something." And now he began to see for the first time the unbelievable magnitude of what man, when he gained power to understand and rule the world in terms of dialectic truths, had lost. He had built empires of scientific capability to manipulate the phenomena of nature into enormous manifestations of his own dreams of power and wealth -- but for this he had exchanged an empire of understanding of equal magnitude: an understanding of what it is to be a part of the world, and not an enemy of it.

this makes me really mad!!

the following website gives a story of a man who was detained and harassed at a US airport for wearing a t-shirt which contained arabic script, and english text which both read 'we will not be silenced'. he was asked repeatedly to remove the t-shirt. eventually, the airline bought him a 'new york' t-shirt, which he agreed to wear over the top of the original t-shirt, so that they would allow him on the plane. this shit make my blood boil...

http://www.parkerstudio.com/AAW/JFK_story.html

the airline in question was jet blue...

poo york, poo york

last night, i came home from dinner at a friend's place in brooklyn (thanks raoul, it was delicious as always), to find a man-sized human turd on my front doormat. i stared at it for a bit, thinking, 'it can't be. must be a pile of leaves or something', so i poked it gently with my umbrella point, expecting a crisp crackle, and a light flutter. nope. no such luck...

squelch.

my stomach rotated gently in it's socket, quietly blending curry (delicious), beer and gin. ouch. resisting the selfish temptation to step over the turd and make my way up to bed where i could pretend it never happened, i gritted my teeth, grabbed the doormat by its edge (disgusting enough! who knows how many drunk idiots have pissed on it!), and dragged it over to the gutter where i flipped the turd, mostly out of harms way. i then returned the mat to its resting place (forgetting to flip it over :(), and went to bed.

the really mysterious thing was; who drops a turd on someone's doorstep in the late evening? i could almost (but not really) have understood if this had been at 4 or 5am, when everything is closed, and there is no-one around, but i got home at about 12:30am on a saturday night!! i live in a neighbourhood chock full of bars and restaurants, with any number of more desirable points of defecation than my front doorstep. not too mention the audacity of squatting down for a shit just off footpath on a moderately busy street, on the busiest night in a busy neighbourhood. it's not even like my doorway is particularly well concealed from the street.

anyway, to the mysterious stranger - thanks for adding a little colour to my life.. although, i have to admit; brown is not my favourite color.

m

Incredible computer generated portrait!

this photo is totally CG... it can't be too long before this kind of stuff can be done in realtime. scary stuff...

for source images including the original wireframe, see here

microsoft patents 1 & 0

this is an onion post (from 1998). very funny imo.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29130

the commons

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. (Thomas Jefferson)

from an interesting article on the future of democracy:
http://joiwiki.ito.com/joiwiki/index.cgi?emergent_democracy

m

(sorry for the long radio silence.. have been rooly busy. will write something soon...)

telcos

i'm trying to work out how to cancel my time warner cable bill.

their website makes it very easy to pay your bill, but i'm buggered if i can find any way to cancel it. anyway, so while i was searching the web for how i might actually stop paying these people $40 / month for 1000 channels of extremely addictive mind-numbing shite, i found this post on craigslist...

i'll let you know if i fare any better than this guy. to be honest, i'm not +ve that i _can_ match his kung-fu style :)

Time Warner Cable: I got all day

---

Date: 2005-03-04, 2:56PM EST


In the time it takes me to cancel Time Warner cable, I've managed to: -Read all the top stories on yahoo news -Read every major CL city's RnR for the past few days -Masterbate -Make some coffee -Do yesterday's dishes -Take out the trash -Watch sportscenter -Take a shit -Brush my teeth -Shave -Make out this month's rent check and mail it -Get a slice and eat it -Pickup my laundry -Put away my laundry -Chat with 3 friends on IM -Compose a three paragraph cover letter -Write an email to an old reference -Burn 2 CDs -Name that annoying classical tune blaring while I'm on hold (Liebestraum) -Post this on CL And I'm still on hold. Time Warner, you can't match my kung fu style. I got all day, motherfuckers.
62311394

trombone rouge

this guy traded a red paperclip for a house. over a period of a year, and 14 trades, he traded up the red paper clip from his resume for a house in Kipling Saskatchewan.

the trades were:
paperclip for fish pen
for clay doorknob
camping stove
red generator
beer keg + light up budweiser sign = instant party
a famous skidoo
a trip to yahk, british columbia
a camper van
a recording contract
a years rent on an apartment in phoenix
an afternoon with alice cooper
a KISS snowglobe
a movie role
a house in saskatchewan

awesome...

ps speaking of montreal (well, we weren't but this red paperclip dude is from there), i just got back from the jazz festival and 4 days with kim k and bf jean-maxime.

couldn't believe what a friendly city montreal was. after new york, i felt like everyone must be about to steal my wallet or something - i couldn't see why they would be smiling for no reason. nobody in nyc smiles at a stranger for no reason..

one of the funniest sites i've seen for ages

seriously hours of entertainment...

http://flashface.ctapt.de/

new photos

after a really long hiatus, i've finally gotten around to uploading a new batch of photos to flickr.. there's quite a few new ones, so check 'em out, and let me know what you think.

here is a sample:

interesting article on environmental attitudes in the us of a

http://www.newstatesman.com/200606190014

i particularly like the quote:

On average, passenger vehicles purchased in the US last year got 21.0 miles to the gallon; this was a worse gas mileage than the average passenger vehicle got 20 years earlier.

and:

In many parts of the country George Bush's recalcitrance isn't representative, but in others his equivo-cations look positively progressive: Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who chairs the Senate committee on environment and public works, has famously called global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people".

crazy japanese arcade game

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-895578651560971399&q=piano+arcade

it's hot as hell in new york, and due to get hotter... i've been getting all fit and healthy; lots of yoga, no booze or cigarettes. gonna start contemporary classes again this weekend after a really long break. also going to salsa tomorrow.

will keep you posted.

m

john howards blog

http://johnhoward.blogspot.com/

shocking!!

check out this article on a massachusetts school which gives its students electric shocks for behavioural issues.

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=12222

and to think i was outraged by a discussion with a woman at a party tonight about the fact that her son's school force him to have hair shorter than shoulder length.

and it's not even texas...

got some photos back today (yep, old school!), including some nice ones of nicki and pip's wedding,

m

ps sorry about the pun. couldn't resist.

1 month l8r

sorry it's been a while since i've written anything. i just got back from australia on tuesday night, and i'm still jet-lagged. god, that flight is a killer! i had such an awesome time being back, although the combination of working and trying to catch up with everybody was exhausting!

to the people i didn't manage to catch up with; i'm sorry. it was just impossible to see everyone, and the people that i did see, i didn't get to spend nearly enough time with. i think that's just the way it goes :((

also, i had a party for my 30th. if you didn't get an invite, again, it was nothing personal. i organised it totally last minute (surprise!), and only did sms invites, so some of you who phone numbers i don't have didn't get one. sorry about that. to those who came, i had a really fun night. thanks :))

eden and i took a holiday up north for the last 5 days or so, which was awesome. we stayed for a couple of days with ruairi and pru in lismore, and then for 3 days out at a permaculture farm and education centre with tiku. it was a really beautiful way to spend my last week in aus.

here are some funny videos:

body builder
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5281816467879887508

g.w. bush x2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1921276117304287501

google idol
http://googleidol.com/hallOfFame.htm

okay, hope you are all well. new photos coming soon...

m

hoomans

check out these two beautiful pieces of techno-art: We Feel Fine ( http://www.wefeelfine.org) and Lovelines (http://www.love-lines.com).

they use blog analysis to explore human nature. we feel fine illustrates human emotion, while lovelines illustrates human desire. Both projects are collaborations with Jonathan Harris.

awesome...

cool maps mashup

streets with freaky names..
http://www.freakstreets.com/

all grown up

i turned 30 on the weekend, and went hiking in upstate new york. the weather was absolutely perfect and i camped by a crystal clear lake in the forest. i even managed to avoid being eaten by bears.

here is a photo of the lake where i camped.















in case you've been hiding out in the forest, and missed stephen colbert addressing the white house correspondents dinner, it's here http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/04/29.html

kind of uncomfortable to watch, but absolutely hilarious...

jack bauer

in the spirit of the chuck norris email that went around a while ago: jack bauer from 24....

also, i'm coming home in may for 4 weeks, and am planning to have a bit of a party for my 30th (and just an excuse to catch up).. if anyone has any good ideas for a venue, please let me know.

one month later

so it's been a while since my last post... has been a pretty crazy month. i've been working a lot, and partying quite a lot.. i had a totally relaxing weekend this w/e though. it was beautiful new york spring weather, about 20 degrees and sunny all weekend. i can't really write a proper entry tonight as i've just got off the phone from my brother, and it's way past my bedtime..

i'll try to write a more detailed one soon. i have uploaded some new photos though (finally). check them out on http://flickr.com/photos/hackster



hope you're all well,

m

imlay city, michigan

so, i've been spending the weekend at eden's stepfather's parents house in a small town in michigan: imlay city, population 3869. eden didn't know i was coming and was very surprised to see me! he thought they were coming to pick up one of sam (eden stepdad)'s friends.. was soo good to see him after 2 months away. we've been hanging out, doing touristy kind of stuff, as well as just spending time in the house. i was teaching eden to play hot cross buns on the recorder today.. he's getting so grown up. i'll post some pictures from the trip when i get back to new york.

today we're going to the henry ford museum and to the science museum. should be lots of fun. then tonight, i'm heading back to new york to hang out in my *new apartment*... my furniture and boxes arrived from melbourne on friday, so i will have lots of fun trying to organise everything when i get back.

also, the previous post about john howards 'apology' turned out to be an awesome piece of culture jamming. the link is down now, thanks to the thought police, but you can access the original post, as well as some intetresting posts on the whole thing here: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_the_aust_060313_john_howard_92s_apolog.htm

will write again soon..

m

ps i'm in the airport now. the ford museum was quite amazing. i took lots of photos (especially for my brother dave, who is a huge ford fan). it turned out to be not just fords, but a huge transport museum, including cars, trains and aeroplanes, as well a lots of other really interesting cultural stuff.

i can't believe that isn't in the australian newspapers yet!!

john howard aplogises for iraq!!

http://www.johnhowardpm.org/speech1817.html

real-life simpsons intro

this is soooo cool!!! the simpsons intro done in real-life. awesome!

ipod for christians

http://www.devoted1.com/

check out this 5 foot sub-woofer.. they reckon it puts out up to 180dB.. can't wait til this hits chapel st.

btw i'm in california at the moment, visiting company headquarters. the toilets have seat-warmers and built-in remote controlled bidets...

weird.

what did i say about american tv?

so, in a previous post i mentioned that television was better here. i'm in california at the moment (although i think the tv is much the same everywhere), and last night i discovered 'flavour of love', a celebrity reality tv show, where 20 women compete for the affections of flavour flav, former frontman for 80s hip-hop group, public enemy*

i recommend people with too much time on their hands to check out this classy highlight from the show that i happened to catch last night (my first time watching, by the way, but certainly not the last!!). in the clip, flav is deciding which two of the three beauties, (named new york, pumpkin and hoops), remaining from the original twenty will carry on to the next round. flav shows his decision by placing a giant clock necklace around the neck of the lucky ladies. there's a hot tip for budding casanovas...

throughout the series, there has been no small tension between two of the lovely ladies, pumpkin, and new york.. (apparently not their real names....), which resulted in pumpkin, who was rejected by flav, spitting in the face of new york.. this was shown several times in super slow motion, for anyone who missed it at home.

quality viewing folks. don't worry if you're in australia though, and wondering how you are going to catch this fabulous new television phenomenon. channels nine and ten are in a bidding war over 'flavour of love' as you read.

m

* thanks mike delight for the correction...

george w give the finger to the environment

see george w let you know what he thinks in this video....

okay, so it didn't have much to do with the environment, but i didn't want to do two posts. pretty funny though :)

since coming to new york, i have been struggling with the amount of packaging that comes standard with e v e r y t h i n g! you can't buy a croissant without a piece of paper to wrap it in, a cardboard box, a paper bag to put the box in, 12 serviettes, a plastic knife and fork and two plastic carry bags... (slight exaggeration only)

this is not to say that Australia is soo much better in this regard, but it's definitely a shock.. the culmination of this packaging excess was reached today when the 1GB MMS memory card which I bought on the internet was delivered.

scared of numbers? skip to the **********

the dimensions of this card are: 36mm x 24mm x 1.4mm (for a grand total volume of 1209.6mm3)

the box in which this marvel of modern technology was delivered had dimensions: 150mm x 220mm x 300mm (giving the figure of 9900000mm3)

*************************

nice to see you back.. for those of you who skipped over that last bit, the packaging that this card came in was over 8000 times bigger than the card itself. it's not even fragile!! you can practically jump on these things!! i should add that this box was stuffed with crumpled up paper too...

to put this in perspective, if your tv came in a box that was this much larger than necessary, it would come in a box 16 meters by 16 metres by 16 metres... approximately the size of a 5 storey office building.

okay. rant's over.. just had to get that off my chest.

on the bright side, tv is better here; especially the ads, and you can get a pretzel on every corner :))

m

cycling in new york

i bought my kryptonite 'new york' chain lock yesterday for $100 US. according to the bike shop dude, it will take an angle grinder to cut it off. he also said that this won't stop my bike from getting stolen, but may delay it for a little while. when i asked him, 'would someone really cut a bike chain with an angle grinder in broad daylight?' he said, 'would you say try and stop them?'.. point taken.

for those of you who want a taste of the manhattan cycling experience (and have broadband connections), you should check out this video. it's about 50Mb (streaming), but well worth it, i think. you have to crank the sound up too.. mum, better to give this one a miss, i think....

m

anyone seen minority report?

this screen is amazing!!!

things about my life

good:

1. i'm going ice-skating tomorrow
   
2. i have a cool job
   
3. i have a really cool son.
4. i have made some good friends
   

bad:

1. rent here is outrageous and places are small
2. i spend too much time at work
3. riding my bike in new york is scary (i rode around the city tonight for the first time.. it was quite a rush!! but definitely scary)
   
4. i miss my baby
   

hmm. evens.. have to work on that :)) hehe

m

warning: poor taste

show someone how much you care with a fecalgram. warning: don't click on this link if you have taste or fine sensibilities (rated pg).

interestingly enough, this comes up on the list of ads for google revenge

m

new photos

i haven't shot 35mm film for what seems like years until i went to tasmania at the start of this year. in fact, i hadn't taken any photos for ages (apart from on my phone, but that hardly counts :)) until i got my digital in november (thanks again phil and jason :))

i finally got my film back from the developers. they didn't do a great job on it, but i have uploaded the scans to flickr.. i haven't had a chance to fix them up, as i am flat out, but i hope you like them anyway..

nicki and pip, there's some shots from your wedding. i hope you like them. let me know if there are any in particular you like and i'll give you a high res copy.

i still have a roll of transparencies to come (slides for non photo geeks). will post them as soon as i've finished the roll. god, 35mm is sooo old school!

i will write a proper blog entry soon, i promise.. no more dodgy web links.

xx

m

milk and magnetic chips, mmm yum,

Magnetic chips to replace transistor?
For the first time researchers have created a working prototype of a radical new chip design based on magnetism instead of electrical transistors.

remember the milk dot com.
This is a really cool site. It's basically just a TODO list, but means you can access you stuff to do from anywhere, and share tasks with contacts. Really handy..

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

well, i was hoping it would snow in new york before winter ended, and i guess my prayers have been answered in a big way... it started snowing last night as i was leaving a bar in the east village with some friends and has been snowing ever since. the ground is covered with about a foot of snow. the city last night looked so beautiful!! it was amazing.

i was totally unprepared though, and was wearing slip on birkenstocks, with no grip. i totally went down on my ass while crossing the street; my phone and my shoe went flying through the air while taxis attempted to run me over.. it was well worth it. new york rocks.

Japanese McDonalds Commercial

McDonalds Japan McGrand Tomato CM

and even better than a sexy ronald mcDonald; a real life transformer.. robots in disguise

democracy: congress banned from editing wikipedia

This is kind of an old story (ie the BBC is on to it...), but I wanted to make a comment on it.

Dr Occult writes "BBC news is reporting misuse of Wikipedia by politicians
for 'polishing' their images. The article on President Bush has been
altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that
Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further 'editing'." From the article: "Wikipedia
says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for
those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it.
It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from
editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six
months due to the inappropriate contributions." (extract from slashdot.org)

For those of you who have been living under a rock, wikipedia is a free and open encyclopedia which anyone can contribute to or edit anonymously (-ish. there is almost no such thing on the internet anymore). In my opinion, wikipedia is the best example of large scale, functional democracy the world has ever seen.

It therefore seems bitterly ironic that the US congress has had to be banned from editing it because they keep attempting to paint themselves in a good light. I'm sure the Australian government won't be far behind; they're just waiting until they can get broadband...

fear of girls

hilarious video of dungeons and dragons nerds (think napoleon dynamite)

what's up doc?

herman the giant rabbit

Awesome movie of a hard drive in action

movie

Housing market in manhattan

I haven't actually started looking for a place yet, but when I do, this is what I have to look forward to...
Talk About Renting a Hole in the Wall - New York Times

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a vacation resort.

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?

Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.

Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

GC: A cup ' COLD tea.

EI: Without milk or sugar.

TG: OR tea!

MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."

EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TG: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

FAQ: When Google is not your friend | Tech News on ZDNet

Good article on issues of privacy as it pertains to use of search engines with particular focus on Google.

FAQ: When Google is not your friend | Tech News on ZDNet

cool trick in firefox 1.5

if you are not using mozilla firefox as your default web browser....

you should be!!!

go here right now and download it before reading any further.

i just discovered a new feature in v 1.5; you can right click on a search box in any page (i think :)), and choose 'Add a keyword for this search'. From then on, you can search with that keyword straight from the location bar.

So, as an example, i set 'w' to be my shortcut for wikipedia search, so now i can search wikipedia just by typing "w ani difranco" in the location bar (where you type http://www.hotmail.com/ for luddites)

you can do as many different shortcuts as you want.

way cool...

a google future

here are four possible predictions for the future of google as foreseen by some prominents futurists, including one of my favourites, Ray Kurzweil.

The four outcomes discusses are:

1. Google is the media
2. Google is the internet
3. Google is dead
4. Google is God

interesting reading.

politics, funny

i was watching the daily show (with jon stewart) last night. if you haven't seen it, it's hilarious.. i think it's on sbs in australia, and comedy central in the US. anyway, there were a couple of awesome highlights (for the actual show, go here, it's worth it!)

tom delay, the republican member for texas, stepped down from his post of house majority leader because of concerns over ethics. here is a quote from cnn's version of what happened in the vote for a replacement.

" ED HENRY, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Kyra.
Some dramatic developments so far. They went into a first ballot behind
closed door, the House Republicans, and they had a problem -- they had
more ballots turned in than actual Republican members of Congress that
were here to vote, so there were concerns about voting irregularities.
They had to do a revote. Once they finally cleared that up, they did
not get a clear winner on the first ballot. They've now gone to a
second ballot."

let me repeat... "they had more ballots turned in than actual Republican members of Congress that were here to vote, so there were concerns about voting irregularities."

in other news, ken lay (former chairman of enron) is being brought to trial after 4 and a half years. stewart asks, "why 4 and a half years? because apparently it's harder to bring ken lay to trial than to invade two countries."

hehehe.. lol. and some people worry about the state of western politics.

m

ani difranco streaming radio

a must for ani fans (with internet connections..) ani radio

also, i think i posted at some stage that there was no wikipedia entry for ani.. not sure what i was doing that day, there has been one since 2001.. i must have been tripping..

m

google snack room

a view of one of the google snack rooms, and a google food photo blog.

20% better fuel efficiency

disclaimer: (i haven't actually tried this :)) use at own risk...
DIY Live » DIY Archive » Better Gas mileage

subtle differences

http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square [google.com]
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen+square [google.cn]

and google's explanation of the whole situation:

Wow, check out these computer generated images!!!

CGI Images

Speed Reading Site

Anyone who has to read large amounts of information would probably dig this. It takes any chunk of text and displays it one word at a time. Presumably very good training for speed reading. Complex documents can easily (with some concentration!) be read at 400 wpm or more!!!
Speed Reading Accelerator

Ski trip

wow, so i'm back from the ski trip, sun/wind-burnt and exhausted. my whole body is aching and i feel like i could sleep for about 12 hours, but god, it was magnificent!!! we had fresh dumps of snow, and great weather. i had soo much fun *and* managed not to break anything... all in all, a great couple of days.

i also managed to meet some cool people and make lots of new friends. i'm really lucky to be working with lots of interesting, intelligent and inspiring people.

i didn't manage to take any photos though. i didn't think of it at all on the first day, and just thought of it on the second day as i was coming up one of the lifts, and the sun was setting over the top of the mountain. it was so beautiful. sorry about that. will post some photos soon though, i promise.


hope you are all doing well. will write more soon,

m

Do we trust the US military? Of course we do...

I wonder if this story is just a pentagon plant... Interesting reading...
US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

perks

did i mention that we are going on a company ski trip on thursday and friday :)) i'll post some photos when i get back...

m

make your own zombie

Freakish Zombie in 11 steps

first day at school

so i turned up today for my first day, after waking at 3am, with my new humphrey b bear lunch box, vegemite sandwiches and my new school uniform. i only cried a little bit as i left the subway and walked into the big bad world of corporate usa. i sat in a little room with four other new kids, and we made awkward smalltalk and traded marbles.

anyway, after lots of paperwork and orientation blah blah, i got my desk, computer and found out what my project is. it's pretty cool, but of course, i'm not allowed to talk about it :(( will let you know when/if it goes public...

on an unrelated note, if you get sick of giving your email address to sites, just so you can trial a piece of crappy shareware etc, check out www.jetable.com. it gives you a temporary email address for an hour or so that will forward to your regular address. means you don't get spam until the second coming.

m

a few funny/interesting sites

just saw a very funny (for geeks) site on a guy who tried to water-cool his pc

also check out shiny mud balls. i reckon these are way cool, if a little weird...

and robert jordan 'wheel of time' fans, check out the awesome faq and encyclopedia. almost as addictive as the books...

new york new york

okay, so i've finally got my shit together to write. sorry it has taken me so long... it's 6am in new york, and freezing cold. i've been awake since 3am; a combination of jetlag, excitement and strange sleeping patterns keeping me awake. i start my first day at work today. it will be good to finally start, after a year long process since i first sent my resume in!!

new york is great. i've been having a really good time catching up with old friends and making new ones. tim, stu, nicki and liz came over last night for dinner and drinks, which was lovely. i have a very nice apartment, albeit only temporarily until my furniture arrives. hopefully when i find somewhere more permanent to stay, it will be big enough to have friends over... as i'm sure you all know, rent here is outrageously expensive, especially at the moment, with vacancy rates at 1%. manhattan has a lot of very expensive shoeboxes...

okay, seeing as it doesn't look much like i'm going back to sleep, i'm going to do some yoga before work... hehe that sounds so funny.

ps i have skype now... my username is m dot lancaster, and i even have a camera in case you wanna have smiley chats...

i haven't taken many photos yet, but the few i have are on flickr...

will let you know how the first day goes!!

m

leaving town

i'm finally leaving... after months of anticipation and preparation, i'm leaving my home town of melbourne for the big apple. my furniture left on thursday, and last night i had my farewell party, which was beautiful, but hard to say goodbye to my wonderful friends. i'll miss you all so much!!! i'm totally exhausted.. it's been a crazy full-on couple of weeks/months, logistically, physically and emotionally, and i'm really looking forward to just being on the plane and not having anything to organise. i think i'll sleep for about three days when i finally get to nyc.

the last couple of weeks since christmas have been really amazing. for new years, i went to confest (a big hippy festival in the middle of nowhere). check my flickr site for photos (i'll post them in a couple of days). it was really nice, but crazy hot. apparently got to 51 degrees celsius! (that's 124 Fahrenheit for those in the old units).

i met an amazing woman at confest (hi tiku), and we journeyed down to tasmania together to hang out in the forest (more photos on flickr). the forests in tassie are so incredible, and the devastation caused by logging is so intense and traumatic. the corruption in the logging companies and the state government is blatant and digusting. i watched a documentary about a year ago on television about the corruption and collusion between the government and the main logging company in tassie, and it was so scathing, yet still nothing has changed. it is truly heartbreaking. hopefully something will change before there is no old-growth forest left. (for those who don't know, australia's old-growth mostly ends up as woodchips for export, to be made into paper and toilet paper).

okay, sorry for the spontaneous rant. hope you all had a beautiful christmas and new years...

see you in new york!!!! farewell marvellous melbourne...

m