Oct
31
2008
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A new video content site with major Hollywood talent involved. And some of this actually looks worth watching too.
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News that famous cookbook by Fernand Point is being republished (look for it in Australia). Point was inspiration for Thomas Keller and other chefs, and also basis for Gusteau in Ratatouille and much of the movies' philosophy on cooking.
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Great news — Sam Mendes has signed on to direct a movie version of Preacher. So it's off at HBO, and back on as a movie. Still no guarantee, but when you get an A-lister like Mendes, it become way more likely to get made.
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Cute story about the Obama's campaign personal response to three kids after they wrote to him as part of a school project. Nice touch, cute thing for Obama and his team to do.
Oct
31
2008
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Another good story comparing seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing to the current US election. So many similarities, though certainly not exact.
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New Wii game coming out next month I should keep note of. A Time Crisis style shooter game, it sounds good. Got a good review in Wired, hopefully not too expensive.
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Seems like a simple thing to have on laptop to download and cache sites and rss feeds to read offline when on the train.
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Another agency worth noting for all the usual reasons. This one reps Scalzi.
Oct
30
2008
Usually I think all reports of ABC (Australia) bias are a crock of shit. Rubbish made up by right wing nutjobs that can’t handle real reporters grilling them or their political charges.
But after watching the news last night, I’m not so sure… but not how you, or they (above), would think.
It was another story on the US election, following McCain in Pennsylvania (again). And I’m firmly convinced that the ABC’s agenda was to make all Americans look like retarded simpletons.
As polls consistently show Obama ahead on all counts, and as much verifiable evidence has McCain tanking big time, ABC (and other news outlets) seem to want to follow McCain’s death spiral like never before. And more importantly, when they showed McCain’s supporters they were the worst kind of dullards imaginable. Not just racist, but stupid, spouting falsehood after falsehood about Obama — the usual stuff — “he’s a Muslim”, “his oath of office was done with a Koran”, etc… I mean, if you’re against a guy, at least be against him for realistic reasons.
And of course, I have no doubt that this is an accurate picture of many of McCain’s supporters. But why such a heavy focus on them? As things slip away from McCain and polls show his heavy-duty supporters more and more of a minority, it seems that the ABC News wants to focus on them more than ever. As they become more irrelevant to the US, they seem more relevant to the foreign news show.
So why would this be? Sure, it’s “real”, but it just seems so unrepresentative of the way America is trending right now… as if they want to make sure to have them look like idiots…
More later if it seems to warrant it.
Oct
29
2008
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Good round-up of Linux on USB key options. Could be something good to have (for work with system failures even?)
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Good round-up of Linux based media centre options. Another one to know.
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Check out these Flash games and see how fun they are, especially for Will.
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Interesting looking free online art tool. Fun to experiment with at least.
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One of the full servie lit agencies that are mail submissions only, but certainly looks like a major player.
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Really good post on targeting web and small online media to get your message out. Much better than most mainstream news outlets, especially when you're small.
Oct
28
2008
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Hodgman video from TED site. Need to watch this one.
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Interesting story about using new food techniques to get a picky eater to eat veges. Would love to try this at home, not sure how feasible it is though.
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Realy good article about a new kind of urban homeschooling being embraced by parents in New York. Look at some of the resources that come from this article, see what exists locally.
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Good opinion piece on the failures of newspapers (and any print media I think), and why they're doomed to failure on their current path. Very relevant, even to current job.
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Amusing "truth in advertising" TV title gags.
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Really good collection of 25 top news photos of last century. Good list.
Oct
28
2008
Since we moved, I now walk through Blacktown Westpoint shops everyday going from home to the station and back. And so I see retail land every day, even though the shops are shut during most of the trips.
And I’ve noticed that Christmas apparently starts in late October now.
I don’t think it started this early in previous years, and it’s not hard to know why. Retail is so scared of a sales downturn that they want Christmas to come early this year so that big sales figures come early. I can understand that, but it also can’t help but make you a little cynical about the whole thing.
I love Christmas as much as the next guy, especially with a young family to enjoy it, but October decorations just seems a bit nuts…
Oct
27
2008
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Great story about open source hardware and the way it's transforming business the way open source software already has. Good stuff, especially about the Arduino board.
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Another hot photo shoot, this time of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Good stuff again.
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Hot photo shoot of Kristen Bell that seems recent. Good shots!
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Interview with Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips. Skimmed it, seems like a fun one, with some video that I can't seem to watch at work.
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Interesting story about new weekly news mag in Australia and its counter-intuitive way of doing business. And how it might just work anyway.
Oct
27
2008
It appears at the moment that the Internet is awash with hordes of angry Republicans, desperately commenting and baiting and ranting on every blog comment thread on every conceivable site they can find. Whether US sites, British, Australian, whatever, no site is immune, especially mainstream news sites.
The hatred and bile from them is extraordinary … and they haven’t even lost yet. Imagine what they’ll be like when they do lose (and yes, the usual caveats still apply, it’s 10 days out, they still might not lose yet and so on).
Once again, it’s ok if you’re a Republican. The amount of whinging out there about angry Democrats and “Bush haters” in the last eight years was really not backed up in reality — sure there were angry Democrats, but they waited until they’d lost for one — and I don’t remember any serious death threats or outbursts from Dems against Bush (certainly not serious enough to warrant investigations at least.)
But angry Republicans have started already, despite the fact they haven’t lost it yet. Just got an eyeful of it on The Guardian site, the sort of media outlet that always gets it a bit worse because they’re perceivably left-leaning anyway.
But hey, as long as it stays online, who cares. If it stays virtual, we can just sit back and enjoy the show and laugh loudly at them…
Oct
26
2008
A funny thing is watching Alex dance and slide across the wood floor, deciding he has to avoid the vacuum cleaner at all cost when I’m cleaning the room. He was laughing the whole time, and knew it was funny too.
A funny thing is watching Will partially imitate the Haka before the League test (Australia won easily, naturally). He really only clapped and waved his arms around, but I like that he found it interesting.
A funny thing is how Will’s really taken to singing Wiggles songs all the time now. I mean, it’s adorable, but it’s funny too. And he seems to be interested in playing cricket, which is not unexpected, and should mean much fun too…
A funny thing is that I cleaned up heaps of the house today, unpacked most everything in the main rooms, and generally made large parts of the house quite clean, which is odd, and funny, given it’s only been a couple of weeks since we moved in (last house it took months). But I like this place more, I think.
Nice day, hope to see more.
Oct
25
2008
Having a good Saturday, still cleaning up and unpacking, playing with the kids, enjoying the nice weekend weather, and I figure that in the night, I’ll watch some more Daily Shows and maybe The Shield. I’ve got this great new system where I can burn files straight to DVD with no conversion and play them straight through my DVD player.
But of course, that suddenly won’t work. For absolutely no discernable reason, I suddenly cannot burn DVDs at all. The stupid old damn Windows PC has had enough problems recently, without such a basic function suddenly ceasing to work. Damn we need some new laptops…
So I spend two hours trying to get something so simple to work, even downloading a whole separate program to see if it works. Nothing.
Probably should have just watched stuff in the office… oh well.
Weekends are the good times, but this doesn’t help.