this is a Queen post

I just saw this article on ontd and it reminded me how much I fucking love Queen.





Every time I hear Somebody to Love I cry.

Every . Fucking. Time.

Doesn't matter where I am, what I'm doing, what my mood is like, how much I've had to drink, who I'm with, or even who is performing it, I tear up like a little bitch because thinking about Freddie Mercury makes me cry.









He taught me what gay was. And yet I never saw him talk about being gay. I know he's supposed to have said he was as gay as a daffodil and I mean come on those jumpsuits what...

how

, but he was unfathomably talented and his death is a genuine tragedy, spoken and written about by people much more articulate than I am. But his music, his costumes, his performances, said 'I am what I am. So what?' and that ain't just a queer thing.



I can't help but feel that people owe Mercury a lot. Yes there have been so many other amazing role models like him, and yes there are plenty of other painfully talented musicians and songwriters, but no buck-toothed moustachioed men are still singing to my soul eighteen years after they died, not like Freddie.



So yeah. Adam Lambert can make out with his keyboardist on stage at the AMAs. And he can talk about there being a double standard in relation to boy and girl musicians kissing other boys or girls. There will be a backlash, and he will get performances cancelled, and he'll sell CDs and not sell CDs. I for one haven't heard any of his music which I am assuming is fucking terrible. I don't care, because it's not the point.



Freddie, you are so missed. You'll never be replaced. Shitty pop stars ain't got nothin' on the original good old fashioned lover boy, but they sure do have a lot to thank you for.

I just found my new favourite webiste...

Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I have a confession to make. For several years in my mid to late teens, I was a goth. This may come as no surprise to those of you who know me, because it is statistically likely that any chubby girl who likes Placebo will indeed eventually turn to the dark night of gothdom. I've cheered up in recent years but my brief stint in black lace lasted up until as recently as 2002, as evidenced by the below photo:

So you understand that when I link you to the incredibly funny Goths in Hot Weather blog, I do so with fondness and love in my heart. I am not without sympathy for our leather and velvet-clad brethren.

I too, know only too well the pain of growing up in a relentlessly sunny country, in a stupendously blessed beach town, bathed almost perennially in the kind of sunshine that makes you feel like a free man after years of enslavement. I know exactly how it feels to be so exhausted from stomping around in several kilos of black cloth and chains. I am intimately familiar with having my eyeliner go all runny after a few hours at the beach.



Oh, my sweet, sweet children of darkness. Remember: waterproof foundation will resist melting, even in the heat of an Australian summer. Liquid eyeliner is your friend, but you must earn its respect.

Goths in Hot Weather, via BoingBoing.

New layout!

Oh by the way, for those of you who read this via an RSS client (hello Google Reader I love you did I mention that today?) I did a little work on my blog's appearance. It is a lot more spiffy now. So go Check it out!



A gazillion thanks go to the folks at Blogger Buzz for their post about the wealth of free blogger templates available out there. I was recently complaining to a friend about how fugly the default Blogger templates are, and how even with my amazing Google ju-ju I was unable to find something even resembling prettification.

So if you have a Blogger and you want to make it look nicer, or if you just like to see cool design skillz, check out the links at this post.

Do you love the outdoors?

When I was a kid my parents loved camping.


They were nuts for it. Apparently in their younger days they caught some sort of disease from using unbleached toilet paper and then all of a sudden had this pressing urge to run out to Kmart and buy camping gear. By the time I came along their madness was unstoppable. Our garage was full of canvas tents and rusted poles, two-man sleeping bags (I didn't want to think about that one too closely), folding plastic tables with chairs attached, gas cookers, gas lanterns, gas bottles, portable gas barbecues, and a set of very weathered-looking tin pots and pans.

Apparently having children had only somewhat dampened their enthusiasm for sleeping on the ground outside. Each school holiday brought new horrors. Do you know what it looks like when at least seven families who see each other no more than twice a year pack their 4WDs full of camping gear and their many children, take it all somewhere remote, and attempt not to murder each other for a weekend? Well I know what it looks like. It looks like happy school holiday fun!

Anyway lately I have been thinking about those family trips quite a bit. It is camp season in the US right now, and as I lose weight I begin to imagine what my life will be like once I am no longer hamstrung by my physical inadequacies. Naturally, the mind turns to images of beautiful, free-spirited young people, dressed in only slightly dishevelment by armed-forces grade jumpsuits of pure energy, clutching their tactical assault liquid nutrient vessel, smiling wholesomely at a camera. Behind them is a stunning sunset, glinting off the towering peaks of a n incomprehensibly beautiful canyon. In front of them is a life of athletic endeavour, punctuated with sights of all the wondrous splendour this Earth can provide.

It is prudent to remember that the reality is never quite what you imagined.

images from Happiest People Ever! via Laughing Squid.

Wii Fit: an update

Just a quick note to let you all know that my Wii Fit diary continues offline, though for the past couple of weeks I have been without console, so there's not much to report. I've been walking and just started back at the gym this week so I have not been slacking off in WF's absence, I promise!

For the "I don't give a rat's ass crap about your exercise, woman!" crew, here's your daily lulz: ONTD broke Livejournal.

Adventures in Wii Fit

The following is a direct, unedited journal entry about my daily attempt at training with Wii Fit. Feel free to skip the rest of this whole post if you ain't interested in my exercise exploits, you won't find anything to enjoy from here on out!

DAY SIX

35 minutes exercise time in total. Unlocked several new games, the improved rhythm step, which was so much harder, and a couple of muscle ‘challenges’. Since I do ‘girly knee pushups’ and the Wii doesn’t seem to consider those good form, I did very badly on the press up challenge, but I kicked that robot British man’s ass at the jackknife challenge. I’m going to look in to a proper plan because without some guidance I am wont to just do the bare minimum of games/exercises that I enjoy, without much thought to what good it’s doing me. Weight stayed the same today, after a few heavier than normal meals, so at least it’s not going up anymore. Am proud of my very first weekend attempt at WF and it feels good to get back to it after two days of silliness.

Day Four Fail

The following is a direct, unedited journal entry about my daily attempt at training with Wii Fit. Feel free to skip the rest of this whole post if you ain't interested in my exercise exploits, you won't find anything to enjoy from here on out!

DAY FOUR

No WF for day four because I went out and got perilously drunk instead. Hoorah.

The following is a direct, unedited journal entry about my daily attempt at training with Wii Fit. Feel free to skip the rest of this whole post if you ain't interested in my exercise exploits, you won't find anything to enjoy from here on out!

DAY THREE

Began with fitness test, apparently have gained almost a whole kilo since yesterday. Have concluded BMI/weight measurements are bullshit, and I either need to seriously watch what I drink in the hour before I weigh in, or just stop expecting to see it drop, even though I’m working my butt off and dieting and stuff. Anyway, whinge over, I hope that it is just some internal Nintendo thing to make me stick to the regime, and it’ll come good once the game decides to start being honest. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Fitness age went from 25 to 30.

Did some hoola-hooping, jogging, rhythm step (so much fun! This one is definitely my favourite), some muscle work (jackknifes hate me) and then some yoga. Skipped the balance games all together because I’m just no good at them and haven’t got the patience to spend enough time working out the sensor’s quirks. Plus, the stupidly long wait times getting in and out of those things drives me nuts!

Speaking of wait times, I am beginning to see the reasons behind the most common complaint about WF. Being able to put together a program of select exercises would be nice, and though the game comes close by suggesting which strength exercise goes well with which yoga pose, each time you want to do a new thing you gotta exit out to the main menu and select it. Tedious. Pushes workout time out above the 35 or so minutes I’d like to spend on it, but for now it is bearable.

Exercise time: 31 minutes.

Wii Fit

The following is a direct, unedited journal entry about my daily attempt at training with Wii Fit. Feel free to skip the rest of this whole post if you ain't interested in my exercise exploits, you won't find anything to enjoy from here on out!

DAY TWO

Found it really difficult to get to sleep last night and didn’t end up drifting off until after 2AM. Then up at 6:40 and off to the gym. Started back at week one of my pushups plan and it was H A R D! 20 minutes of yoga seemed to drag but somewhat hot gym guy made me feel better. Looked forward to getting back to Wii Fit all day and despite the 30+ temperature today I walked home one train station extra. After my dinner I jumped back on the balancing board only to have it tell me I’d gained 0.7 kilos since yesterday! Whatever, Wii Fit. I put down the wiimote and tried again, and this time I had lost 0.4 kilos since yesterday. Then when I went to do my training and it had to readjust again. I might have to start ignoring the weight measurement/BMI entirely, at least in minute details day-to-day. This could make goal tracking a problem, and I’m really bummed that the board appears to be so hypersensitive.

Anyway, on to the training. Today I tried to make an attempt on each exercise just to get them all clocked up. The only one I haven’t done is the 2P jogging, and that’s because I don’t have a 2P! Lunges were a lot easier today, but I was a lot wobblier during the yoga than I was yesterday. First attempts on the pushups/side stretches, jackknife, ski jumping, table balance, and a couple of yoga poses, and I kicked ass at the jogging as well as the rhythm step exercise.

Overall I would characterise today as a disappointment, with the changeable results from the Wii balance board and my apparent slip in good posture. I am certainly sore but less exhausted than I was yesterday, despite slotting WF training into my usual routine, and I’m still very much looking forward to tomorrow, as well as unlocking more exercises.

But for now, I’m going to watch NCIS before this little lamb hits the hay.

Adventures with Wii Fit

The following is a direct, unedited journal entry about my first day with Wii Fit. I'm still not sure how I'm going to keep this diary, whether offline until I have some results, or online in stages. I don't know whether I should leave it on my Livejournal, or for that matter on my laptop's hard disk, but for now I will post my initial thoughts. Feel free to skip the rest of this whole post if you aint interested in my exercise exploits, you won't find anything to enjoy from here on out!


DAY ONE

I intend to keep a diary of my experience with Wii Fit, made easier by my wonderful Macbook Pro, which will help me stay mobile and log things while my Wii Fit experiences are still fresh in my mind.

Today is Monday, the 5th of Jan, and I bought Wii Fit after a pretty extensive phone search. Post-Christmas sales made it a bit harrowing but I secured the game, board, and some rechargeable batteries. That reminds me, I better go put those on to charge now!

My first foray into Wii Fit involved setting up my Mii and putting in all my user data. My BMI is in the 40s, so Wii Fit told me to watch what I eat. I’m currently on a Lite ‘N’ Easy controlled diet so I’m not going to worry too much about that. (Check my Flickr if you're interested in seeing a sample of what I chow down on.)

So, I set a goal of losing 10 kilos in 3 months, slightly above the recommended weekly rate of weight loss. (A safe and consistent rate is apparently around 1.4 kilos a week, and I’m intending to go at 1.6)

So after my Mii got a bit of landscaping work done to its middle section, I jumped in and started with the aerobic exercises, designed to burn fat. First was the Step Basics exercise, which was pretty intimidating, because it featured some sort of Mii auditorium, packed full of people watching! I was hopeless at this, must remember to clear a space all around the board next time. Moving my feet off the board in time with the exercise’s rhythm was difficult to coordinate, as I’m not familiar with the board’s height yet. I expect this to get easier. Got one star out of four for my first attempt. Lots of room for improvement there.

Then I did some hoola-ing, which was hard to get the hang of initially but pretty fun, even though I know I looked like a total dork. I was a little concerned about the Jogging exercise because I have high blood pressure and usually avoid intensive exercises but it wasn’t too bad, I pretty much just marched on the spot but moved the Wii-mote quick enough to trick it in to thinking I was going faster.

Then I did some Muscle workouts and I have to say, this was really intense. I performed well, a three and a four star rating for the two I did, but the “lunge” exercise in particular really took it out of me. “Single leg extension” was fun!

Speaking of fun, I moved on to some balance games to wrap it up, and based on other reviews of Wii Fit I’ve read I will probably just burn through these to unlock everything and then avoid them, since they are mostly just light and fun. “Tightrope” took one false start and then a “professional” score on the second go, and I laughed every time I got smacked in the head by a flying shoe when I tried out the soccer-themed “Heading” game. I’d like to put more time into the skiing game since I was pretty tragic the first time around.

In the next few months I’ll be tracking my time spent with the Wii and reviewing at the end of each week. Today I clocked 16 minutes of actual exercise time and around 45 minutes with the game. Hopefully I can stretch that out to a full half hour in the coming weeks.

Later tonight I went back and tried out the yoga. I’ve done a bit of yoga before and three times a week I use Let’s Yoga on the DS for about 20 minutes in the morning before work. I did all of the yoga poses initially available, plus the Sun Salutation which I unlocked today, and getting that little dot to stay in the yellow circle was awesome fun, not to mention I did very well. Mostly threes but the occasional four out of four stars. Here’s my first problem with that. I know for a fact I wobble around like a maniac when I do yoga, and maybe it is my own insecurities coming through, but I’m quite sure I’m nowhere near the level of “yoga instructor” or “yoga master”. I think the Wii is being waaaay too generous here!

My other initial problem: I’m not confident in the system’s clock. I know it’s nice and neat to round out all the exercises to whole minutes, but all of that rounding is probably going to equal a lot of inaccuracies, and I don’t want to miss my goal just because I thought I had put in more time than I actually did.

A minor qualm, I guess, and having the Wii keep count for me is way more enjoyable than having to start and stop my own watch. This is especially important, because the Wii Fit board doesn’t have any buttons on it for navigating the game. You have to keep a controller handy at all times, and while I got sick of carrying it, I don’t always have pockets, especially in my workout gear. I just left the controller next to me on a coffee table and reached over to mash A when I needed to skip something or enter a command.

I’m excited for tomorrow’s session with Wii Fit, as it is the first day of my more full-on exercise regime. Pushups and yoga in the morning, half an hour of walking in the evening, and now some time with Wii Fit. I intend to do Wii Fit every day I’m at home in the evenings, which should be roughly six out of seven nights a week. Because I’m lame, and spend a lot of time at home =P

Resolutions

The holidays are like a clutterphobe's worst nightmare. You're (hopefully) spending more and more time at home instead of at work, you've just acquired a whole bunch of cluttery knickknacks from well-meaning loved ones, and if you dwell in the Southern Hemisphere like me, it's oppressively hot. (pant, pant)

These magic ingredients can lead to an awful lot of messy. I am not ashamed to share the fact that my tiny flat could be photographed as a warning to future generations. In fact, I am going to use it for just that purpose. In the coming weeks, I am going to put something of a serious effort into getting a handle on my mess.

So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here is a picture of my disgraceful laundry/bathroom, from several months ago.


Points of notice include half an exercise bike, a cupcake stand (cupcakes included), a broken air conditioning unit, and more clothing than I would ever think possible. The room doesn't look much better these days, and I'll tell you why. Bottle necks.

Recently I got very excited by the prospect of starting over, and began the arduous process of packing things into boxes ahead of our much needed move. This started out very conscientious. Layer box with scrunched newspaper, wrap item in clean white paper, place, layer with more newspaper. But eventually it descended into me piling a whole bunch of unsorted, unwrapped crap into a series of boxes labeled "to sort", "be gone" and "give back".

Turns out, the big move is much further away than originally estimated, and so now I have a series of sloppily-stacked towers made from cardboard boxes, overflowing with junk. This ridiculous storage system has spread over each room in the flat, and I assure you, there are not many rooms to go around.

Here's the big ol' tower of doom boxes.



And don't get me started on my kitchen.



So it's kinda obvious I need a bit of help. I can perform four very cramped paces in my kitchen between the fridge before I hit the stove, and even that involves a very complicated swivel-half-turn-and-poise to avoid THIS MOST RIDICULOUS SOFA.



Not to mention the fact that the bathroom/laundry space is more like an urban nightmare than a room for relaxing rejuvenation or the pleasing monotony of washing clothes. But without a car, a great deal of spare cash, or even much motivation, where's the quick and easy? You know the q and e, you see them all the time on reality television makeover shows.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is going to take time and research and, most importantly, a great deal of motivation. So! I am not one for these things, and it's almost the 4th of January anyway, but here is as close as I'm ever going to get to a new year's resolution:

I hereby vow to make a real attempt at dealing with my tiny flat.

It's not much, but it's a start. And speaking of which, how's this for starters?

Stenstorp kitchen island, $599 at Ikea

Antonius desktop, legs, uprights, & drying rack, roughly $108 from Ikea

And of course, the all important task that prevents all that mess from piling up quite so fast: ruthlessness. I try to keep my possessions within the Big Three: beautiful, useful, or loved. If it's not one of the three (ideally it's all three), it's got to go. But sometimes stuff just seems to breed back there, in your cupboards and stacked in bookshelves and within the piles of spare linen. This article on Lifehacker might help with that.

Wish me luck! I will keep you all posted on how my 'resolution' goes in the coming weeks. Best case scenario, I spent a few extra months in this too-tiny flat but with a bit more space than I had. Worst case scenario, it drives me mad for those few months until we finally get our act together and find a bigger place to live, which I suppose is a pretty tolerable "worst".

Happy New Year!

it is aliiiive!

Goodness, I've been away from here for a while, eh? It'll take more than a few cobwebs and a layer of dust to keep me from posting today, though! So, let's see if she still works, then.

Hope y'all had delicious fun times if you're in to that sort of thing. I enjoyed my time spent with the family and got a whole bunch of awesome crap to boot. (Check my flickr if you're interested in all the USB gadgets and interesting books I scored.)

I'm just popping in before work goes back (briefly) to mention my upcoming projects for the summer. After following Miles Grover, captain of the Thinkin' Lincoln webcomic ship, on Google Reader, I stumbled across Snack or Die, which was buried within. What can I say? The man's got taste. And taste is what I expect I'll be doing a lot of, now I've got some hints for some deliciously geeky treats.

A few months ago I made a cake for a seven-year-old's birthday that featured an orange Half Life 2 logo. I actually made two, since I felt I needed a practise round. They both worked well, and as I recall they were eaten with relish. At the time, I had spent several hours searching for nerdy cakes, but ended up going with a google image search and a bit of my own creativity.

But such an approach is no longer necessary, thanks to the wonders of Snack or Die. In particular I liked the Mario mushrooms, Pacman and his ghostly friends, as well as the question blocks, but that's really just for starters. Check out the blog for more awesome nerd cookies, cupcakes and other assorted delectable items of nerdy goodness.

P-platers: A Much-Loved Talkback Topic

From the SMH website, originally heard on ABC 702 Radio.

"So you think junior is a little too lead-footed when he drives the family car? Starting next year, Ford Motor Co. will give you the power to do something about it.

The company will roll out a new feature on many 2010 models that can limit teen drivers to 80 mph, using a computer chip in the key."

I've only had a couple of crashes in my short driving life as a p-plater and none of them were at high speeds (We are not counting scraping the rear vision mirror of my mothers ENORMOUS Ford Farlane when reversing out of our tiny driveway when I was on my Ls, but again, it proves my point, as I was only going about 2-5km/hour). The fastest I have ever been travelling during an incident was 55km/h in a 60 zone, and some bitch pulled out in front of me and I nearly soared over the edge of a cliff in my boyfriend's BMW. A kindly tow truck driver rescued me for $20 and I returned to the road, to arrive at my uni's enrolment day a little bit shaken but fine.

I cannot stand the way this issue is misrepresented in the press. Yes, young drivers are over-represented in road fatalities. But not in high-speed road fatalities! My father is far more likely to cruise around at speeds upwards of 120km/h, because he feels he has the 'mad skillz' to handle it. I'm not even allowed to go over 100km/h, and I honestly didn't do it much. No one has the reflexes to handle a sudden change in conditions when travelling over 120 and when the maximum speed limit in most of this country is 110km/h, I can't understand why they make cars that go faster than that.

If you are going to limit the speed at which young drivers can cruise around, why not take a look at limiting all cars, and therefore all drivers? Stop singling out the highest profile group of drivers just because it sounds good in a press release and the media can rail against the filthy youth of today and all their high-falutin' hoon driving.

"You may stop me, but you can't stop us all."

So I'm listening to the news this morning and I'm glad to not be hearing too much about the new NSW cabinet, partly because the phrase "new NSW cabinet" bothers me on such a fundamental (grammatical) level, and I pick up on reports from a child sex and exploitation court case involving a New South Wales police officer.

From ABC News:

A New South Wales police officer charged with child sex and pornography offences has been ordered not to use the internet or approach his alleged victim.

So basically what I learned today is that Dade Murphy (or the actor that played him) is a paedophile.

Smell the hypocracy: Camden Council loves Catholics

Today's midday news bulletin on Sydney's radio 2UE, and widely-reported around this fine city full of left wing pinko communist heathens, a story about everyone's favourite banjo-picking western suburb; Camden.

Sydney's Camden Council says it will take advise from experts before allowing a Catholic church to build a new school in the area.

Handy tip: if you are a council that has recently rejected a development application for a Muslim school in your remote rural town, letting it be known that the fact that Catholic schoolchildren are a better fit for the community than Muslim children makes you look like a bunch of douchebags...

Oh wait...

LOL Hillsong

From Sydney's 2SM midday radio bulletin, more reasons to avoid school-organised functions like BBQs and fetes. Responsible parents don't expose their children to extremists, or extra-curricular activities!

"Concerns are being raised about Hillsong evangelist Christians attempting to convert children in NSW public schools."

I am willing to make an exception for Hillsong's amazing website's intro video. The intense voiceover actually uses the phrase "the endtime harvest". Fantastic.

Sunday Secrets

You've all heard of Post Secret, yes? It's a blog run by this dude who gets sent often very creative postcards, with the one proviso that they contain a secret, something that the postcard's author has not revealed to anyone, and they now wish to convey to the whole internet. I have bought one of his books, and I read the website every week, but lately it has essentially been bullshit.

I did chuckle (actually out loud) at a couple from this Sunday, though! Such a rare occurrence I was driven to make a post about it.

Bravo, Frank. Bravo.

Awesome geek tattoos

These totally awesome comic book and geeky tattoos make me want so badly to overcome my fear and get inked myself. Wired has a wicked gallery of comic-inspired tattoos from ComicCon.

Gallery, via BoingBoing

(Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)

Richard Dawkins reads his hate-mail aloud

A cool video of fellow Satan-fodder Richard Dawkins reading some of the profane, violent, hateful email he gets from his greatest fans; Creationists. His little chuckle at the end is heart-warming and it is always a pleasure to hear the author and biologist speak.



YouTube, via BoingBoing

Oh dear god, the furbies

Do you remember Furbies? I don't remember ever wanting one. I always knew they were creepy and a few steps behind terrifying robot animals enslaving the human race for their own nefarious ends. Here's a video that will give your morning a very strange start, should you chose to watch it.



"The art he practiced was a performing art rather than a creative one: Doctor Jest was the Chief Interrogator of Melniboné. Reaching out with his free hand, he expertly seized the genitals of one of the male Furbies™. The scalpel flashed and the resulting music grew louder and more complex as the Furbies™, their vocal cords surgically operated upon to sing but one note each, screamed in perfect harmony. Even the young emperor was moved by the sinister echo of their songs. 'Why should their pain produce such marvelous beauty?' he wondered. And the Emperor Elric closed his eyes."

via BoingBoing.

Creepy virtual actor looks real

The lady in this video looks like a real person, but she's not. She's a digital replica of the actress Emily O'Brien created by Image Metrics and Paul Debevec at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. She is also creepy as hell!

The Emily Project, via BoingBoing

Women in the Israeli army

You may have seen this already, and I'm sure I've come across a few of these images, but not the whole collection.

Photographer Rachel Papo's Serial No. 3817131 is just a stunning collection of amazing photos depicting the everyday lives of women in the Israeli army. The project is named after the photographer's own ID number during her service.

Incidentally, I had to use kroxy to get to the gallery, because the photography is apparently unsafe and categorised as "weapons". Filtering, you're doing it wrong.

Serial No. 3817131 via BoingBoing

I Must Haves It

I am not a strong knitter. I can do what for lack of a better word we will call a "scarf", as long as it is all the one colour, and all the same kind of stitch. But I must have this Katamari Damacy Prince of All Cosmos Baby Hat. I do not have a baby, but I'm sure I can modify it. There's a pattern and more pictures over here.

via BoingBoing

Apple announces MobileMe subscription extensions

Following my previous post about the poor performance of MobileMe, users today received an email from Apple Support offering a 60 day period of free the service, in the light of the disastrous launch and the numerous problems encountered.

The Support article is understated in the admission that the launch was hasty and bug-ridden. Apple claims "[t]he transition from .Mac to MobileMe was rockier than we had hoped" and that MobileMe is "still not up to our standards", and announced an extension to any free trial period users may be taking advantage of.

This is the danger with early adoption, and it is great to see Apple acknowledging the issues, and promising to work them out. However, I hold out very little hope that the computer manufacturer will actually address the concerns of users. Apple has a long history of ignoring the glaringly obvious (MMS and video recording for the iPhone spring to mind, not to mention a character counter for SMS length).

MobileMe users wait with baited breath to see if Apple can redeem themselves, but any free time extension offer does little to ease the pain of having already sunk money into the crippled service.

Neato Flickr Set

Some interesting shots of travel souvenirs shot with proper perspective, superimposed over their original locations.

Set, via Laughing Squid.

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

A friend of mine (HI BRYAN) is currently doing a digital cultures class at uni and has been nattering non-stop about it for the past few weeks. Luckily it is all very interesting stuff and this video he sent me was really an amazing piece of work. It totally articulated some of my thoughts about the value of this goofy little video sharing website and by extension the entirety of the ways people share information online. It's an amazing video and if you have an hour to sit and watch it, Michael Wesch will totally blow your mind.

Dinosaur Lamp

I want one of these so bad! Fairly affordable, at $US26 too!

Here, via BoingBoing.

Do I Hate the Cloud?

A post over at Lifehacker has been sitting in my mail for about a week now, waiting for the article that is in my head to get written. It's called Do You Trust the Cloud? and focuses on the risks and benefits associated with having a web-based presense. That's email, calendars, contacts, photos or data storage, that is primarily accessed via an online service like Gmail or MobileMe.

The "cloud" refers to the system of what Apple calls "push", which is where your mobile device or computer speaks to a "cloud", which is connected to the internet, so you're informed of updates like a new email, without the need for your email application to be actually open. The LH article focuses on recent outages and what you do when your entire digital presense just disappears whenever there's a hitch, but it prompted me to think more on a recent dilemma I have been experiencing lately, and that is: Do I Hate the Cloud?

I spent four hours in line for an iPhone, and I knew ahead of time that I was also going to get one of those fandangled MobileMe accounts, because I really liked the idea of using a web-based email program that looked like a native OS application. All things considered, it was not a problem I really needed to spend approximately $100 solving.

And now, instead of using Gmail, I use MobileMe. Or at least, that's the plan. My iPhone certainly beeps at me when I have a new mail, Blackberry style, but when I'm at work I tend to just have gmail.com open. Here's why.

At my work, we hotdesk. It is unpleasant for many reasons, but one of them is differing levels of insane user restriction. Some computers will let you install your browser of choice (Firefox 3) but not the flash plugin, some will let you install flash but it won't run with sound, some will let you do nothing of the sort, etc etc. I used to solve this by running Firefox Portable from a USB stick but MobileMe and FP did not get along. Not even a little bit. Seems that MobileMe needs a little too much juice than the USB stick can provide.

But apparently it is also taxing for some of the computers at work themselves, so I never know when I sit down what my day is going to look like. I also hate that MobileMe does not automatically filter messages into folders, like every other email solution has been doing for the last five years. Oh, and it hasn't got any web-based chat option like Google Talk, which is a great way to waste time in between news bulletins.

Apple needs to at least get folders and auto-filtering working, ASAP, as well as working out whatever causes all the hanging and freezing. It is a laughable to call this a syncronised or mobile solution to email.

Zombie Flashmob

One of my favourite flickr sets shows a flash mob of zombies invading a train in San Francisco, and according to Laughing Squid they are at it again.

Pic courtesy of Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

Stem cells trial helps broken bones

A 36-YEAR-old man who suffered a badly broken leg that wouldn't heal is walking again without crutches after the successful trial of stem cells to repair non-healing bones.

From The Australian, originally heard on 2UE.

Suck it, Pell!