Yes I'm a geekgrrl. Yes I saw it on opening night with some other geeks :-)
And yes, Troffie, I will blog it properly later (and behind a spoiler cut for those who wish not to be spoiled). But suffice for now to say "very cool". Enjoyed it immensely (even though I still maintain from the first Spiderman film that Kirsten Dunst is miscast).
American "Artsurdist", Tom Forsythe, has successfully defended his case against Mattel for alleged breach of copyright. Forsythe's Food Chain Barbie is pretty pathetic, but I'm glad to see that photographing your toys naked is still regarded as an expression of free speech under US law. Not a particularly good expression of free speech, or even good art, but hey.
Even more absurd is that Barbie herself has gone public about her relationship with Aussie surfer, Blaine. After breaking up with long time partner Ken in February this year, Barbie has been spending time with the much more masculine Blaine over the past few weeks.
Most absurd of all is the idea of an Aussie called "Blaine".
I REALLY don't like the cold. And 4 degrees at Ascot when I got up is just WAY too cold. Particularly after several consecutive nights of 6 degree temperatures. My chest feels like it's in a vice and I've lost all sense of feeling in my fingertips. Thankfully I do thaw out during the day here in Brisbane with top temperatures of around 22 degrees, but this overnight cold is getting to me. Roll on summer!
Thanks to Kevin, Troffie and Callum for their technical assistance today and apologies for continuing with my work throughout the time I was supposed to be talking to you all.
As a method of payback, here are my tech links for the day....
With the Apple Developers Conference going on it's no surprise that the aluminium displays being released and the new server (Version 10.4, and code-named "Tiger") are on all the blogs. The displays are fantastic. If there's one thing Apple are good at, it's physical design. The server systemseems fairly stock standard, with an AV version of iChat, a dashboard style display and an integrated RSS reader (for reading blogs such as this) in Safari built into the system. It does seem a bit cosmetic though. Probably should be code-named "Tigger" instead.
But my personal tech favourite at the moment is the tiny mesh cube; a wireless box for mesh networks that's just 7.5cm by 7.5cm by 5.3cm. This, my dear colleagues, is why we should always assume students have network access during examinations.
By tomorrow I should have a rough draft of the paper I'm writing for the new journal of publishing being released by my old colleague, Nick Walker. Will post when it's done.
Thanks to Gary for this link to an article on Warren Lieberfarb, the "father of DVDs" at Time Warner (formerly chief of Warner Home Video). While there are some who would argue that Time Warner have acted irresponsibly in sacking the "disruptive" entrepreneur of a disruptive technology, I think it's clear from the article that this tireless advocate of a new funding source for Hollywood is probably arrogant and exceedingly difficult to work with.
I do not wish to appear as though I'm cutting down tall poppies, but it's increasingly obvious to me that there are those out there who will spend the majority of their lives championing a cause, and that is their chief skill. After forging their success they do not translate easily into stable business leaders. I'm all for entrepreneurs - they are the true innovators of business. I just believe these people are best placed as consultants, rather than CEOs.
Go, Aussie! Go!
Congrats to Sami, Nicole and little Eric on their Australian Citizenship!
Rugby was fun. Thanks to my lovely friend, Camilla, for a fab night out! I do enjoy our physical challenges! ;-)
Thanks to Kevin for this link to an article on Toshiba's latest development: a methanol fuel cell the size of your thumb to power MP3 players. Nice.
Stephen Hawking guest starring as a voice actor (of himself) in The Simpsons.
In trying to explain leetspeak to a friend, I happened on the leet version of wikipedia, which, while I've seen it before, never ceases to elicit from me a deep and meaningful "r0x0rz my b0x0rz".
New toys are fun. But resolving issues of connectivity are not fun. Nevertheless, technicians assure me that the bluetooth connectivity issue between the HP iPAQ 2210 and the Nokia 6230 (my newest toy) will be resolved in the next few weeks, and the downloads will be available at this address:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/handheldiPAQ/us/locate/105_5721.html
Thanks go to my brother and his lovely wife for coming to stay last weekend. Was great to see you both and I hope you enjoyed the break. I'm thinking of you both and wishing you the very best. Take care of yourselves and stay in touch. Love you both!
Thanks to Kara for the link to the article released by Travelex Australia (currency converters) on the translation of knuts, sickles and galleons - the wizard currency of Harry Potter - to Australian dollars. As Kara said, this is so cool.
... It's been a very hard few months. Everything that possibly could go wrong, has gone wrong, including some stuff that has come out of left field. I'm not going in to details because I still believe in a modicum of privacy, but suffice to say there've been times of late when things have seemed awfully difficult. Of course it hasn't all been bad - there've been some times of real happiness - but it seems that this year has been more struggle than reward.
This is partly why my blogging has reduced dramatically. I apologise for the absence, but it's not something that's been high on my list of priorities. I'm hoping this will change soon but I am making no promises.
For now, thanks to my family and friends who have been there for me and for those who needed help. Thanks today to my friends from work who took me away from everything for one day, down to a lovely vineyard in Canungra, near the Gold Coast of Queensland. The atmosphere, the view, the music, food and company were all superb. Thanks guys.
This is a quick message for my big brother, wishing him and his gorgeous wife, Eloise, all good things. We're all thinking of you and we're here for you guys. Love you heaps.
... till Azkaban! Anyone interested in seeing the latest HP film and resident in Brisneyland should meet at the Myer Centre, Brisbane city, on Thursday evening for the 9:20pm sitting (hopefully the one attracting the fewest screaming 6 year olds). And they should probably have tickets first. I intend to be there, regardless of whether my meeting runs late.
And in other news, my back is feeling a little better, and in spite of all expectations to the contrary, the injury to my back has nothing to do with events that occurred after spending time at bars on a Friday night after work.
Press release on the resignation of David Flint from the Chairmanship of the Australian Broadcasting Authority is here: http://www.aba.gov.au/abanews/news_releases/2004/55nr04.htm. Whether or not this is related to the allegation of John Laws about Alan Jones (see earlier post) is still unknown.
Another painful night. Two hours of sleepless torment finally forced me to take another Mersyndol to help me to sleep, and sure enough within a quarter of an hour, I did indeed sleep. But not for long, and not terribly comfortably.
You only really like the dreams that are induced by medication after you wake. Whilst you are in them, all seems so distended and chaotic that you yearn for something solid and recognisable. Last night I dreamt a number of wild dreams of an ancient period of Roman or Egyptian history, with long slave ships delivering women to unhappy futures under a cruel patriarchy, and where those in power devour their delicacies before an afternoon's entertainment of ritual killing, or Olympic-style competition. Every hour or so I would wake and drag my aching back into a more comfortable position, dribble some water into parched lips and drop off again to sleep, knowing it was hours before I had to rise.
At last I dreamt the games had finished. The last "game" - a ritual killing by hanging a prisoner upside-down from the foot and being stoned by the leader of this society - had been prematurely ended on a technicality. The prisoner was set free and the aristocrat (not an Emperor in this society, but a ruler nonetheless, born to power, not earning his rank) had to return to his wine, grapes and song with much rancour for being denied his sport. It is at this point that his faithful servant begins to play the melody of "Sigh no more", the song Balthasar sings in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. And in my dream, the words come to me,and I sing them to myself as one of the women trapped in the temple of this deranged society, and they bring me hope. Only I lose the words as I awake before dawn.
Readers of dreams will probably find much to say on such a night of vivid and violent visions. I, however, am rather convinced that I would be better off free from the artificial visions of a medicated sleep.
Does anyone have/know where I can get a copy of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on dvd? Yes I know I can get it at US$100 per second hand copy at Amazon. I'm so not paying that.