My supply of functional computers is down to two, and one of those sucks.

Not only is my primary PC throwing major tantrums on a regular basis – in a way that indicates faulty hardware, because reinstalling Windows really isn’t helping the issue – but now my laptop has gone belly-up. Hopefully it can be fixed [...]

Five years ago I put away Ultima Online and said goodbye to MMORPGs. For half a decade, nothing really grabbed me; Everquest left me unmoved, and that was the best of what was available. I had better things to do with my time, I figured.

Late in ‘03, a friend encouraged me to join them in [...]

So, thanks to Ray, I’ve just discovered that iiNet – an Australian ISP - is offering very affordable high-speed broadband. For comparison’s sake:

My current plan (with Netspace):
Price: $120 per month
Quota: 35 GB + 35 GB (peak + offpeak)
Speed: 1500/256 ADSL

The iiNet plan I’m looking at:
Price: $90 per month
Quota: 40 GB + 40 GB (peak + [...]

“No offense.”

It practically guarantees that the preceding or succeeding statement will be offensive in some way, but those two magic words mean that you’re not allowed to get riled about it. If only the rest of life had such easy get-out-of-jail-free cards.

I find it fascinating how adding “no offense” to a statement can actually make [...]

Angry Sunset
This is totally a test post, to see how well Flickr interfaces with my blog layout. (I’m guessing, based on comments I’ve heard, that it will be ‘badly’ – but we’ll see.) Given the subject of the last post, it seemed appropriate.

Technorati Tags: flickr, photography

I have a theory: there are two types of creators. Type A are perfectionists; they’re very critical of what they produce, and are always striving to improve. Mostly they’re dissatisfied with the end product of their labours, and see the errors before they see the shiny bits. Type B creators, on the other hand, are [...]

The one where you realise you screwed up? Yep, I have that today. Thankfully, it’s nothing drastic, but I do feel really stupid. I just bought myself a 1GB USB drive for AU$180. I was quite happy with this, as it seemed a fairly good price based on the shopping-around I’d done.

Today I realised I [...]

Exams – too many or not enough?

That was the main theme of this afternoon’s (well, yesterday afternoon’s) hack on Triple J. The announcement earlier this week that the federal government wants to introduce national high school exams has naturally provoked a bout of analysis and discussion from education professionals everywhere.

(The Hack link above includes a [...]

We help them locate the one thing that matters most: their gravy train.

(Seen via Lindsayism, a most amusing blog.)

Technorati Tags: starjack, comedy, celebrity

What do you do when you have four iPod Shuffles and a bit of spare time?

If you’re Jim Wright, you turn them into a 4GB RAID array. This is a really novel thing to do, and it came to mind when I was checking out info on Gmail drives (wherein you can access your Gmail [...]

In all the hoo-hah about the Mac Mini and the iPod Shuffle, I missed this announcement from MacWorld in January: Apple & Leading Car Companies Team Up to Deliver iPod Integration in 2005.

Basically, Apple’s signed a deal with Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Nissan, Ferrari and Alfa-Romeo to integrate iPods with in-car stereos. It looks like after-market packs [...]

Via Slumbering Lungfish, it’s The artist, Steven Frank, illustrates actual spam subject lines with cartoons.

I think this one’s my favourite: Enjoy your love life as much as he does

Technorati Tags: cartoons, spam

My timetable for March-April. I’m pretty impressed…

Note that I only have to go to one lecture per class, although there are two timeslots. So, yeah. 1400-2100 on Monday and Tuesday, and no uni the rest of the week.

Given how late my classes go, I really need to get off my ass and get my driver’s [...]

I’m really very impressed. I just signed up for a Blogger account so I could comment on blogspot blogs without having to be anonymous. Of course, Blogger wanted me to set up a blog on the way through, so I thought ‘what the hell’. (I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with another blog. Possibly [...]

Everything’s going pretty smoothly … so far.

For the first teaching period (six weeks starting March 7th) I’m enrolled in:

GSN401: Managing in the Global Business Environment GSN407: Business Communication GSN408: Fundamentals of Marketing Management GSN460: Creative Problem Solving
Four three-hour lectures a week, which probably means 2-5 and 6-9 on Mondays and Tuesdays. Then I just [...]

Finally. An iPod case that doesn’t suck.

I need to stop eyeing up all these lovely, expensive geek toys and telling myself “It’s okay, it’s a reward to myself for getting into Uni”, dammit.

Technorati Tags: ipod

Looking through the course documentation, I see a note that all students will be required to have access to a laptop computer.

Not a problem, I think; I’m planning on upgrading my PowerBook anyway. (The plan: Buy a 12” iBook with a RAM upgrade for about $1700, and sell the PowerBook on eBay – it should [...]

While browsing Web Goddess, I came across an essay on the use of ABBA music in Muriel’s Wedding and its soundtrack. In it, Kris makes the point that
the entire point of the movie is that Muriel’s wedding is a fool’s dream. She thinks it’s what she wants, but when she gets it she realizes it’s [...]

I get home from the doctor’s this afternoon and finally, there’s the long-awaited Big Fat Envelope in my letterbox. I open it, and – yes! I got in!

In other words – four weeks from today, I start my first classes towards a Graduate Certificate of Business Administration. (It’s the first third of an MBA, basically, [...]

I’ve installed some heftier spam filtering on blog comments. This means that if your comment has a lot of URLs, or sounds like spam, it will either get suspended for moderation or – if it seems really spammy – deleted without me ever seeing it.

Just a warning in case your comment doesn’t appear immediately when [...]