Saturday, September 23, 2006

Bush Stone-Curlew and chick


Bush Stone-Curlew and chick
Originally uploaded by Nicarra.

Alas, this is an under appreciated photo. I suspect that the problem is that the thumbnail doesn't really catch the eye. And catching the eye is the main thing to get feedback or to get added to favs.

So the bird is well defined. There is a baby and few people ever see these. And yet this photo will end up neglected within the Flickr environment.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Excellent article from a gamer

A Gamers' Manifesto is an excellent article about what gamers really want from games. Things like AIs that can actually act intelligently. Many good points are raised in this article about things that are annoying or destroy your immersion in the game.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Memory can be a scary thing

A coworker reported that his first grandchild was named Zephyr. The scary memory is to suddenly remember a key line "Zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now that I can fly" That's scary because it's something that I saw broadcast in the '70's and haven't seen since. Isis. There was a brief spat of live action kids shows during that time frame, I think they mostly failed because the special effects were so noticably horrible. Why did this line stick?


A not quite as useless thing stuck in my memory is that the highest point of the state of Florida is 345 ft above sea level. I got to surprise someone once who was reading a book and asked if we knew it. I said, yep, I know and quoted it. Stunned him fairly nicely.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Interesting - further phishing

I have started a new personal campaign against phishing scams. When offered to update my account I go and use a false account number 5*5 and tell them that the password to the account is "iamafraud". Usually after I send them this information, I get forwarded to the real site.


Today, I got forwarded to this page (please note, this is a phishing scam site. Enter at your own risk!) Not satisfied with my online account (faked) details, now they want my answers to security questions, pin numbers, birthdate, mother's maiden name, driver license number and more.


If I filled in this form, they would have enough basic information for some serious identity theft, not merely one bank account. Yet more evidence that it's a dangerous world online. Be very very careful where and when you divulge things like driver license, pin numbers or your complete birthdate. Don't help them steal your soul.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Cafepress and Doodle Monsters

The cafepress experiment as yet another method of marketing as been a failure. Being an Amazon Associate has worked out reasonably well. People regularly buy things from amazon via my site. Adding google ads has worked well. People click those ads regularly and while many of the ads attached to the game reviews earn .01 each, some of the ads on other parts of the site bring in much more money. But the cafepress site earns nothing.


Part of that was that for a long time, you simply could not find my cafepress store from the main cafepress site. You could find it by searching for "Doodle monsters" in google quite easily. But it never came up when searching or browsing the cafepress site.


At some point, this changed. So from here on out, it's simply that no one needs doodle monsters in their life. I'll just have to cope. :)

Another cute link via userfriendly

The Warning label generator


Your choice of a very wide variety of warning images, and you write your own text.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Music of the week

Best Film Classics 100


This is a massive 6 CD collection of classic music that has been used during films. If you've been pondering the idea of purchasing some classic music and have no idea where to start, this is a good sampler. A number of the classic composers are represented in the collection (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc.) Plus newer composers who write classic style music are included. John Williams has a number of pieces on the CDs.


The pieces vary in length from about 2 minutes to 7 minutes. Each cd contains 15 to 18 different tracks. There's one CD that I don't imagine I'll listen that often to, it's Opera and I'm not much of a fan of that.


My copy was under $20 from JB HiFi in Brisbane. Definitely an excellent deal for this much music.


BTW - welcome Friendless, the third regular reader of this blog that I know of.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Just to keep some perspective on this

On the anniversary of Sept 11, Wired News analysed accidental deaths amongst Americans to show how great terrorist threat really is.



So primary causes of accidental death are roads and work. Sounds good, no more driving into work for me!

The Crocodile Hunter would not approve

Apparently some people are hacking tails off stingrays in retribution for Irwin's death. Given he spent much time trying to protect wildlife, he would never approve of this. The news article says his is the third recorded death from stingray in Australia in 100 years.


Treat wildlife with respect, that's what the Crocodile Hunter would say. It was tragic but definitely a freak accident that the ray happened to get the poison to the heart.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Frodocam


Frodocam is a webcam in Brisbane of nesting Peregrine Falcons. They are raising two chicks in the centre of the city.


For a series of screenshots from feeding time, go to my new Flickr account and see the series of pics I saved.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Carrying on in the Music Theme

I realised this morning while driving into work that if I wrote a post a week about each music CD we own, I'll have posts for the next 4 years (give or take a bit but we own a lot of music.) Without further ado, let's get this puppy started.


Eagles The Long Run


The Eagles music is fairly old style classic rock. This particular album is their final album, and demonstrates their well-established style. I love the tracks "I can't tell you why", "Heartache tonight" and "The Long Run". All of the tracks are enjoyable to listen to for me. Your mileage may vary, if you don't enjoy old style rock, you probably won't enjoy this album.


As a side note, if you really want to get me to sing, The Eagles and Billy Joel songs are good for that. I'll sing along without quite realising that I'm doing it.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

This will be a good start

I'm fond of music, and in our house, there are a lot of cds. But you still get the occasions when you want to try someone new. Or add more albums of an artist that you like but you don't know where to start.


So it's nice to see top album lists like the Rolling Stones magazine top 500 of all time. We own some of these albums on cd. There are a few we have that are on that old-fashioned large black format... ;) But there are many that we don't own. Some of the list are useful because if you want to try an artist, start with one of their best albums. Others are useful because I want to expand a collection (David Bowie for one) where there are many albums and you want to add more of the best.


It's obvious that the compilers of this list are big Beatles fans. The top 100 has a number of Beatles albums.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

This is scary

In Canada, identity theft might cost you your home.

Cute game of the day

Tilt - how good is your sense of balance? I got to level 12 once so far.



And just to make your day brighter, Sandy the Dog has a web site. Just piccies of a cute dog and their human.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Adopt a pet




adopt your own virtual pet!


Bunnyhero labs allows you to build your own pet. This is my new wolf puppy. Cute?

Finale The Boy from Oz

The Boy From Oz really was a great show. Hugh Jackman can sing and dance with the best of them. The start of the show is Hugh being lowered to the stage lounging on a piano in a mirrored suit (sort of extra large sequins). When you see this you realise that you are in for something different. The cast all gave excellent performances. Peter Allen's most important songs were covered during the performance.


I think that the Virgin Flight from Townsville Friday afternoon was mostly made up of people who, at least in part, were going to see the show.


It was actually a small group of people who used to work together who went. That the four of us made it, three flying down from Townsville, was slightly amazing in itself. We may even decide to go to another show at some point.


It is nice to get out of town and to a big city. We did some shopping in stores with far more variety then you find locally. Bought books, cds and ate lots of food.