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The Firefly Drinking Game

2009-10-13T22:45:00.004+11:00

Okay, here's what you do. You pick a random episode of Firefly, and take a drink when any of the following occur:

- Mal bursts into a room with a snarky comment.
- River says something unintelligible and weird.
- Frustrating sexual tension between Kaylee and Simon.
- Bar brawl.
- Random, butchered Chinese.
- Wash plays with dinosaurs.
- An otherwise fearless Jayne nearly pisses his pants at the mention of Reavers.
- Wash flicks those three switches at the top of the console, which we all know do absolutely nothing.
- Someone gets shot.
- Absolutely unbearable sexual tension between Mal and Inara.
- Book shows knowledge or skills not generally encountered in preachers. Ie, knee capping.

If you think of any more, let me know.

Don't get me wrong. I adore this show.

Tim

(EDIT: adding a few more, thanks to a few people's suggestions)

Tools for word lovers

2009-09-30T21:54:00.003+10:00

Interested in words, literacy, and all that jazz? Then I think you should check out this list of links and tools for word lovers. Certainly some awesome stuff in there.

Also, thewordoftheday! Yeah, I know. Shameless plug. But I'm actually really surprised at the popularity it's received (3,255 followers as I post this, and more RTs than you can count)

See you around,

Tim

Soundwave, High School Musical, and a gig, oh my!

2009-09-18T22:11:00.002+10:00

There's a few upcoming events that I want to talk to people in general about, so I thought it deserved a blog entry. Although this is really one of those entries that is really only posted so it will also appear as a Facebook note.

Right. First of all, I've booked my ticket for the Soundwave festival next year, which will be held in Melbourne on February 26, 2010. (and a bunch of other places around the country) I know of a few people who are going, but really want to get around to booking flights, accommodation (remember when you always struggled with how to spell the word "accommodation"? I've suddenly forgotten how to) and other rather essential things, so if anyone is considering going to the Melbourne show (presumably flying over on the Saturday (the show starts at 11am, so there's plenty of time) and flying back Sunday, probably after a day in Melbourne), and can put up with me and my friends, let me know?

Another thing. I'm currently involved with Exit Left's brilliant production of High School Musical. I have a tiny part (marching band), but it's fun nonetheless. I highly encourage everyone to see it (although tickets are expensive), as it's a fantastic show, even if you don't think it's your thing. It's got some of Tassie's best actors and I doubt you'll be disappointed. From when I post this (Friday night), there are three more shows - Saturday at 1pm, Saturday at 7pm, and Sunday at 2am.

Last thing - my band (Sploosh - please ignore the awful quality of songs on that page if you choose to listen to them) are playing a gig as part of Edge Radio's Medicine Show on Saturday the 26th of September. Come along if you've got nothing better to do!

That's all from me. Send me a message/email/text if you're considering coming along to any of these three events.

Tim

Film review: Requiem for a Dream

2009-09-09T00:33:00.002+10:00

I strangely enjoyed writing the last one. So I thought I'd do another review of a film that I just watched.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180093/

Director: Darren Aronofosky
Writer: Hubert Selby Jr, Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly

This tale of several lives ruined by drugs is certainly a depressing one. Burstyn delivers a great performance as Sara Goldfarb, a lonely elderly lady who is reduced to insanity by diet pills, and Leto and Connelly have wonderful chemistry together as Harry (Sara's son) and Marion, a young couple who both slowly fall apart due to drugs. The theme of this movie was obviously the trouble that drugs can cause, but I felt at times it was a little too obvious, and was drilled into the audience's minds with sledgehammer subtlety. There are some subthemes, but they were all overshadowed by the main theme, which is addiction (to drugs, television, sex, etc). Possibly this is a strong enough theme to carry the entire film, but at times the film felt a little empty without anything else to support it.

The direction was fantastic, with several recurring motifs such as fast cuts between different scenes, sharp montages whenever a drug-taking scene occured, repetition of scenes, and hallucinations. These all worked tremendously well, however, like with the plot, it seemed that there were points where these effects were overdone. In my opinion, Requiem would have benefited from a lot more subtlety. The film was also incredibly depressing, although of course there's nothing wrong with that as long as it was the writers' and director's intent.

Acting: 8
Direction: 8
Writing: 6
Effects: 7

Total: 7.3/10

FIlm review: Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-08T20:55:00.001+10:00

I spontaneously wrote this as a forum post, and thought I'd repost it here.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz

I saw this movie twice, and both times it managed to hold my attention and intrigue me throughout th whole thing. Basterds (deliberately spelled that way for some unknown reason) is the story of a team of Jewish-American Nazi hunters (the Basterds) in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt). At the same time, there is a second storyline, dealing with a young Jewish-French girl named Shoshanna Dreyfus (Laurent), who fled Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Waltz) - nicknamed "The Jew Hunter" and has made a new life owning a small French cinema. When a young German private Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) becomes infatuated with Shoshanna, he manages to move a Nazi film premiere to her cinema, giving both her and the Basterds ideas about a plan that could defeat the Nazis once and for all.

I loved the actors' performances overall. Pitt delivered a wonderful and comedic portrayal of Raine, with few out-of-character moments (that were still there, nonetheless). Waltz's portrayal of Landa was chilling and contributed to some of the best moments in the film. Overall, I see hardly any faults with the actors' performances. Tarantino used his own special style of directing that has made him so famous, although at times, elements that he added seemed a little unnecessary (text effects that often seemed out of place, sometimes gratuitous violence, and certaFilm review: Ingloin plot elements). However, Basterds was an incredibly enjoyable film, that I recommend to everyone who doesn't mind seeing some occasional Nazi scalping.

Acting: 9
Direction: 8
Writing: 9
Effects: 6

Total: 8/10

A Limerick Battle

2009-08-28T21:10:00.004+10:00

My good friend Rob (@halfscottishguy) and I decided to have an MSN limerick battle, semi-inspired by this xkcdb quote. It's nowhere near as witty, of course, but I still thought that it was worth posting.

(19:12:25) Rob Cameron: the limerick fight there is so pwn
(19:12:30) Rob Cameron: i'd like to have one of my own
(19:12:34) Rob Cameron: but if it's you who I fight
(19:12:40) Rob Cameron: you will not beat my might
(19:12:54) Rob Cameron: you will not kick me from my thrown

(19:17:55) Tim: a limerick battle? well, we can see
(19:17:59) Tim: it worked for the guys at #xkcd
(19:18:02) Tim: sure, you've got wit
(19:18:06) Tim: and your lines seem to fit
(19:18:13) Tim: but you've never battled the likes of me

(19:18:37) Rob Cameron: I realise I now must confess
(19:18:42) Rob Cameron: my past spelling was not at its best
(19:18:48) Rob Cameron: It is personally known
(19:18:54) Rob Cameron: I misspelt the word throne
(19:19:20) Rob Cameron: but at least my limericks have zest!

(19:30:44) Tim: i admit i saw your little mistake
(19:30:49) Tim: no one would make such an error while awake
(19:30:51) Tim: but it's easy to tell
(19:30:54) Tim: you've gotta learn to spell
(19:30:57) Tim: if in a limerick fight you partake

(19:31:23) Rob Cameron: you try oh so hard little tim
(19:31:30) Rob Cameron: but I'm sure your rhymes soon will run thin
(19:31:36) Rob Cameron: I shall toss you aside
(19:31:41) Rob Cameron: kick you out on your hide
(19:31:46) Rob Cameron: and I shall remain limerick king

(19:35:35) Tim: poor rob tries to write limericks in vain
(19:35:39) Tim: the effort drives the poor man insane
(19:35:42) Tim: for as he types with glee
(19:35:45) Tim: he just fails to see
(19:35:50) Tim: that limericks remain tim's domain

(19:45:15) Rob Cameron: Is this is really the best you can do?
(19:45:21) Rob Cameron: then this battle soon will be through
(19:45:25) Rob Cameron: you won't beat my bite
(19:45:30) Rob Cameron: so give up on this fight
(19:45:37) Rob Cameron: and leave me the rhymes left to do

(19:45:56) Rob Cameron: if you wish to be limerick king
(19:46:01) Rob Cameron: you must follow the rules of my kin
(19:46:06) Rob Cameron: through your attempts do amuse
(19:46:14) Rob Cameron: too many syllables are used
(19:46:19) Rob Cameron: and we cannot allow such a thing

(19:46:51) Tim: i admit that i'd started to dread
(19:46:56) Tim: that you'd abandoned our fight and fled
(19:46:58) Tim: but then, in a tick
(19:47:04) Tim: you replied - "that was quick!"
(19:47:08) Tim: but the last line is sadly what she said

(19:49:58) Rob Cameron: What she says to YOU my dear friend
(19:50:02) Rob Cameron: when your escapades quickly do end
(19:50:06) Rob Cameron: you leave women disappointed
(19:50:11) Rob Cameron: while I leave them exhausted
(19:50:20) Rob Cameron: and to the doctors it's them I do send

(19:53:28) Tim: you seem to have got it quite wrong
(19:53:32) Tim: you'll find that i last for quite long
(19:53:35) Tim: my prowess in bed
(19:53:38) Tim: DESPITE what she said
(19:53:45) Tim: has women queuing all day long

(20:01:52) Rob Cameron: for now may we call this a draw
for dinner, I'm being called for
we can continue this later
so don't get all hater
or I will rhyme you to the floor

(20:02:17) Tim: your departure seems to be a sign
(20:02:21) Tim: of your secret desire to resign
(20:02:24) Tim: just as you've shivered
(20:02:27) Tim: from a reply i've delivered,
(20:02:32) Tim: "rob cameron is [sadly] offline"

Tim

Introspective Musical Word Lover

2009-08-28T18:23:00.002+10:00

I noticed this paragraph as an answer for a Facebook quiz entitled "Which Teenage Stereotype Do You Fill?":

Having grown up with some of the most lax and intelligent parents, the Introspective Musical Word Lover has liked everything cool... before you did. You liked Neutral Milk Hotel before ITAOTS, you know where to put the exclamation point in Godspeed You! Black Emperor, you call The Smiths Morrissey, you have a band under every letter in your Ipod Touch, and you've even listened to Radiohead's Pablo Honey album. Your recent favorite authors include Chuck Palahniuk, David Sedaris, Isaac Asimov, and you just love talking about how good Ender's Game is. You would prefer just to stay home and sip on your Earl Grey while reading Perks Of Being A Wallflower for the third time and listening to Animal Collective's Hollinndagain album than to hang out with your so called friends. Oh how disappointed you are that Hagrid has never taken you to Hogwarts on any of your birthdays!.

And here was me thinking that I was a unique snowflake.

It seems that this style of individuality has become just as much a stereotype as anything else. But goddammit, it's a stereotype that I'm proud to (partially) belong to. (at this moment, I am, in fact, reading Chuck Palahniuk and listening to Animal Collective)

So if anyone asks about what sort of person I am, just say that I'm an introspective musical word lover. I'll take it as a compliment.

Tim

How many have you read?

2009-08-04T22:10:00.004+10:00

The BBC believes that on average, the population has read just 6 of these 100 books. Quite disappointing, don't you think? Why not go through the list and see how many you've read.

(I can't seem to find the original source for this. If anyone could find it, that'd be great. Also, there seems to be more than one list - others, for example, have the Harry Potter books as separate entries.)

Bold are the books that I've read.

01 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen -
02 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -
03 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte -
04 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling -
05 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee -
06 The Bible -
07 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte -
08 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell -
09 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman -
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens -

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott -
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy –
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller -
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien -
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk -
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger -
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger -
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot -

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell -
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald -
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens -
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams -
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck -
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame -

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy -
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens -
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis -
34 Emma - Jane Austen -
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen -
36 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis -
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini -
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres -
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden -
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell -
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown -
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving -
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery -
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood -
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding -
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel -
52 Dune - Frank Herbert -
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons -
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen -
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth -
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon -
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens -
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon -
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck -
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt -
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold -
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas-
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac -
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy -
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding -
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie –
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville -

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens -
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett -
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson -
75 Ulysses - James Joyce -
76 The Inferno – Dante -
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome -
78 Germinal - Emile Zola -
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -
80 Possession - AS Byatt –

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell -
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker -
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro -
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry -
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White -
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom -
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton -

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad -
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks -
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams -
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole -
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute -
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas -
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl -
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -

So I've read a quarter of the books on the list. How many have you read, and how do you compare to an "average" person?

Tim

Cross-posted here.

Pale Blue Dot

2009-08-02T23:31:00.003+10:00

I hate to post a blog entry that's just a quote, but I think that nonetheless, it's a quote that's awe-inspiring and speaks volumes.

This is a photo taken by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990. The dot that you see in the centre is planet Earth.

Dubbed the "Pale Blue Dot", Carl Sagan had the following to say in regards to this photograph in his book of the same name:

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Amazing, no?

Tim

How do you waste your time?

2009-07-29T22:26:00.004+10:00

If you use Firefox 3 or above, click on the button to the left of the URL bar, and click "More Information." This will tell you how many times you've visited a certain domain, and can ultimately tell you how much time you waste on each individual site.

(Note that it is a different number for each domain, not site. So the reading for spanglegluppet.com will be based on how many times you have actually been to spanglegluppet.com/anything, and will not count blog.spanglegluppet.com, which will be a separate entry entirely).

Keep in mind that I've only had this operating system for about a week and a bit.

facebook.com - 1,667
twitter.com - 1,663
reddit.com - 710
google.com.au (iGoogle, search, Reader, etc) - 303
mail.google.com - 274
myspace.com (home page, people's profiles) - 265
home.myspace.com - 229

I do conclude that I waste too much time on the internet.

Where do you waste your time?

Tim

Lunar Dreams

2009-07-20T23:48:00.003+10:00

Forty years ago today, NASA's Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity's first steps on the surface of a foreign world. There are some who are cynical, and insist that the only reason that the spacecraft was sent was to prove America's supposed superiority over the Russians. There are some who maintain that the moon landing never happened at all. And there are some who are unfased by the whole thing, and think that the money and effort could have been better spent elsewhere. But the moon landing was a true display of mankind's thirst for knowledge and scientific achievement. And I think the main reason for ever wanting to go to the moon was simple - because it was there, and we could.

Let us not forget that it was an exceptionally dangerous mission. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted before, and there were doubts about whether the mission would work at all. Apollo 11 had about 20 seconds of fuel left as it landed on the moon, and had there been any delay, the landing could have been wrought with disaster. And it was so dangerous, in fact, that a speech was prepared for President Nixon to read, in the event of the mission going wrong and the three astronauts being stuck in space. Thankfully made public, this speech is something that everyone should read.

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

Here's to another 40 years of scientific achievement.

Tim

Upcoming performances

2009-06-23T16:37:00.004+10:00

(Europe was fantastic, thanks. A travel blog is forthcoming, with pics)

First thing's first: I'm in the state final (not very impressive, there was no heat or audition process required to get into it) of Class Clowns on Saturday. Class Clowns is a nationwide comedy festival that's been going for several years. Students compete in state finals and the winners from each state go to Melbourne to compete in the nationwide competition. I've won the state final before, two years ago with a duo act, which went on to be the runner-up in the national final. So it's a lot of fun. I'm performing on Saturday night a short stand-up act and a duo with my friend. So regardless of whether you care about me or not, come and watch - it's always a great show.

It's on at 7pm on Saturday, 27 June at the Backspace Theatre, behind the Theatre Royal. Tickets are $11 and are available at the door.

Secondly: Rosny College's Cabaret is currently on. I've nothing to do with it, but I recommend it to you - I saw it today and it was fantastic. It's college-age students and production, but it doesn't show in the quality. I'm going to see it Friday night again, as the four main characters swap around every night and I'd like a chance to see the other cast. So anyone who wants to come and see it with me, this Friday (the 26th) is when I'll be going.

Cabaret is being shown over the next week and a half. Some performances are in the evening (starting at 7:30, I believe), and others are matinees, that start at some time in the morning/afternoon that I'm not sure of. It's at the Rosny College auditorium, and all of these details and more can be found on its Facebook page.

I've had the opportunity to see some great theatre lately (Metamorphosis, Old Nick's Hamlet, and recently Billy Elliot on West End in London), and there's only more to come.

Like I said, travelblog forthcoming.

Tim

Europe

2009-05-28T14:15:00.004+10:00

First of all, I'm aware that it's been a month since I last blogged. I've been busy, and there hasn't been that much to write about anyway. But expect some awesome posts to be forthcoming.

Secondly, tonight I'm off to Europe for three weeks. I'm looking forward to it immensely, and I'll be taking many, many photos. I'll upload them to Flickr and to deviantART, and post any that are any good here. I won't try and travelblog (I'm only taking my iPod for internet access, and don't want to spend my whole time in net cafes), but I will be Twittering a fair bit.

Send me an email (timjhurd@gmail.com) if you need to contact me, or send me a message on MySpace, Facebook, or whatever social network you happen to stalk me on (I just get emailed in that case, anyway.)

So yeah. I'll be back in three weeks. Have fun without me!

Tim

5 Twitter Accounts You Should Consinder Following

2009-04-27T23:40:00.012+10:00

I seem to be blogging more and more about Twitter, recently. Oh well, it's an interesting topic.

As well as following interesting people on Twitter, there are a number of other accounts that can be very interesting and/or informative. Here are some of my favourites.

1. @BreakingNews

I believe I covered this in a former post, but it's something that nearly every Twitterer should know about anyway. Formerly BreakingNewsON, this account posts breaking news as soon as it happens, often faster than mainstream news networks. I've found out about several breaking news events almost instantaneously since I started following this account, and it's also very handy for tracking ongoing news stories.

2. @Veratect

Continuing in the same vein, a very informative and topical Twitter account is Veratect. Only set up a few days ago, Veratect has only one purpose - to provide breaking news about the spread of swine flu. Posts are always prefaced by the country that the post applies to. If you're at all concerned about this porcine virus, then Veratect is a must-follow account.

3. @playtwivia

Now for a bit of fun. There are a multitude of Twitter games, and Twivia is among my favourites. It's very simple - they ask a question, you DM or @reply your answer, and get featured on their scoreboard. The questions are of a challenging but not ridiculously hard difficulty. Definitely worth a look.

4. @twitterfiction

Another account I've mentioned previously - this one in my last post about Twitter and writing. Twitterfiction tells user-submitted stories in, of course, 140 characters or less. There's something fascinating about a succinct, concise, but well-told story.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that @twitterfiction hasn't been updated in over a year. Oh well - it's still fun to read through the posts.

5. @thewordoftheday

Okay, a gratuitous plug here. I run this one. And while it's nowhere near as famous as the others I've mentioned, I am very pleased with the popularity it's gained - over 900 (over nine HUNDREDDD!) followers as of today. Every day, you get a cool word, pronunciation, and definition. And you can suggest your own words and probably get a mention. Come on, it's awesome.

I hope this post was of some help to you. Happy Twittering!

Tim

Twitter and writing

2009-04-22T23:54:00.003+10:00

I've been endeavouring to do quite a bit more writing recently, and like any aspiring author or poet, one of the biggest problems is inspiration. To attempt to solve that problem, I've found help from a site that I am on far too much - Twitter.

One of the things I both love and hate about Twitter is that it forces you to be concise. In an email, blog post, or similar message, you can rattle on about anything in as many damn characters as you like. But Twitter's 140-character limit forces you to get your point across succinctly and explicitly. How is that good for a writer? Well, the shortest stories are often the best. I've been quite addicted to @twitterfiction recently, and I love the stories on there. Whether you're like me when it comes to a short attention span or not, it can be a lot more interesting to read short, well-written stories or poetry than to read a novel.

Twitter is sporadic, instantaneous, and provides a real insight into people's minds. Many people tweet in a "stream of consciousness" style, just typing whatever comes to their heads. And as annoying as that can be for some, it's an amazing tool for inspiration. Apart from just reading your Twitter feed or the public feed, there are many tools that bring that data to life. Twittervision is one of them - you can have it as a flat map or as a 3D globe, showing you tweets from all around the world. But by far my favourite is called twistori. It grabs tweets from the Twitter public feed that have either the words "I love", "I hate", "I think", "I believe", "I feel", or "I wish", and shows you results for whichever phrase you pick. It's a very simple yet captivating way to see how the public feels.

So next time that you have writers' block (and it happens a lot, at least for me, anyway), take a look at Twitter. Take a random post from somewhere, completely out of context. You don't know the story behind it, nor do you know how the tweet's author is feeling. But that doesn't matter. As a writer, it's your job to make that up.

Happy writing/Twittering!

Tim

Cross-posted here.

For an hour, you too can pretend you're saving the planet.

2009-03-31T09:28:00.004+11:00

Written for English, but it's a topic I wanted to write about anyway. Cross-posted from here.

It's an admirable idea. To get everyone to consume less electricity for an hour. That was the stated aim of Earth Hour, a global effort by the WWF (that's this lot, not these guys) to try to get as many people as possible to switch their lights off for an hour. Now was it a success? It depends on how you define "success". I think that the participation in Earth Hour was quite overwhelming - millions of people worldwide did indeed turn their lights or electricity off, news stations did their broadcasts in the dark, and even Google made a token effort by turning black (which has nothing to do with saving power but rather saving white pixels). But, as someone who cares about the environment, after an hour of living in relative darkness, I was disappointed to find out: the planet isn't saved yet.

Why not? It's because we don't care enough. I'm including myself in that category - I'm all for alternative energy and for preventing global warming, but I, like many people around the world, don't do a thing about it. Most of us felt like we were really making a difference during Earth Hour by turning off our lights. We felt like we were saving the planet. But if we were serious we'd get out there and protest, pour money into alternative energy, try and get into politics to make a difference. But I, like most others, simply only do what's convenient. It's easy enough to turn your lights off for an hour. I could have saved even more energy by unplugging my laptop, but I didn't. Cause I was using it - simple as that. I didn't want to slightly inconvenience myself. And I feel awful for having that attitude, but the truth is that it's the way that most people think. And simply put, the planet will not be saved until we get over ourselves. The same goes for any issue - to help poverty, for example, I could be donating to these guys, but the closest I've come to "making poverty history" is by playing this (which is fun, don't get me wrong.)

But that's not to say that Earth Hour didn't bring about an amazing community spirit. The blogosphere was a-Twitter about the issue, and people were posting pictures of their dark streets on Flickr left right and centre (here's mine). It was quite eerie to walk out on to the street at nine o'clock pm and have it feel like midnight, or like the same city years ago, before electricity and before all the conveniences of modern life. The only lights I could see around me belonged to the people across the road, who I doubt care at all about the environment due to the "No Greens" sticker on their four-wheel-drive. But apart from the odd household, nearly everyone got behind Earth Hour, and made the event in some ways a success.

But like with any issue, this problem of depleting resources and global warming won't go away until we do something about it - a little more than a token effort of just turning off our lights. Our intentions were good with Earth Hour, but we need to go just a few steps further if we really want to make a difference.

Education Department filtering fail.

2009-03-25T08:49:00.008+11:00

See what happened when I innocently tried to access my dA page in digital art today?

I'll try and see who I can talk to about this...

Tim

EDIT: After talking to the IT guys, they're going to contact the DoE to see what they can do about unblocking dA. And I've just discovered www.thesun.co.uk is blocked as well (under the category Nudity). This is getting a little out of hand.

EDIT (9/4): Common sense seems to have prevailed, and it's unblocked.

Latest screenshot

2009-03-23T23:01:00.003+11:00

Ubuntu 8.10 - controls are Industrial, window border is Dust (from gnome-look.org).

Tim

Metrically Speaking

2009-03-22T18:30:00.003+11:00

Because the idea came to me when I was in bed last night, I've decided to revolutionise the time. Our current system of telling time seems rather silly, with all the 24s, and 60s, so here's my attempt at making it metric.

One day would not contain hours, but rather 1000 minutes (which could be thought of in groups of 100). This is not too different - there are currently 1440 minutes in a day, so one "new minute" would be roughly equal to 1 "old minute" and 26 seconds. The number of minutes would just simply be said as a number: 0 would be midnight, 200 would be equal to 4:48am, 500 would be midday, 750 would be 6pm, and after 999 (midnight the next day), it would reset to 0 again.

Each minute would be divided into 100 seconds (making 100,000 "new seconds" a day, each one roughly equal to 0.86 "old seconds"). The seconds would just be written after the number of minutes and a colon - for example, 443:72.

God, I'm a nerd for even thinking about that.

Tim

English blog

2009-03-20T16:42:00.002+11:00

I have a blog for my English writing class, which can be found here. Why not check it out? There's not much on there, but updates will follow (and I may cross-post some stuff from here, if it seems necessary).

Tim

ACMA blacklist leaked.

2009-03-19T13:44:00.003+11:00

See here.

Some higlights:

Redtube, xtube, and a slew of well-known porn sites, both legal and not.

Lemonparty, 2girls1cup, etc.

Encyclopedia Dramatica.

The whole of /b/.

Several Wikipedia pages, including user pages.

Online poker sites.

YouTube pages.

This has to stop. March in March is this Saturday, in Canberra. Be there if you can.

Tim

No clean feed maybe, but censorship nonetheless...

2009-03-18T15:58:00.003+11:00

Reading this article is scary indeed. Two posts ago, I blogged about the Australian government's plan for a nationwide internet filter, and how it had apparently been shot down due to opposition in the Senate. That may still be true, but the government is now taking a different course of action - fining websites that link to banned sites, up to $11,000 a day, apparently. Whirlpool was threatened with the fine after the controversial anti-abortion link (featuring pictures of aborted fetuses) was posted to their discussion forum.

And now apparently Wikileaks is on the list of sites that it is illegal to link to. Yes, I'm linking to it, but 1) I doubt the government, let alone anyone, reads my blog, and 2) my site isn't hosted in Australia. So I think it's all good. But if there was any doubt about the Rudd government's intentions with its filtering scheme, the banning of Wikileaks all but confirms it - this is not about protecting the children, or stopping terrorism, or whatever other reason we're given - it's to quash political dissent.

The fight against censorship is definitely not over. This Saturday, the 21st of March, the Digital Liberty Coalition are hosting March in March, an event in Canberra designed to show their opposition to the internet filtering. Unfortunately I can't make it due to time and monetary constraints, but if you're anywhere near the ACT on that day, I urge you to turn up. Maybe we can finally make a difference. If not, it'll be a great day anyway from what I've heard. The DLC are a fantastic, non-profit, grassroots organisation, and I can't say enough to encourage you to support them.

Tim

The internet: Your source for breaking news.

2009-03-07T18:06:00.004+11:00

As any Australians would probably know by now, there was a small earthquake in Melbourne last night. It lasted for only a few seconds and there was barely no damage. But what has amazed me about this incident is how quickly the internet (namely Twitter) let me know.

The first notice that I got was from @BreakingNewsOn, a fantastic service on Twitter that alerts you of any news that it deems "breaking". (Sure, there are several updates an hour, so you may have to sort through the updates for anything that really affects you) But it's a Twitter account that I recommend everyone follows, if you're the slightest bit interested in your world's happenings.

Thanks to Twitter's search function, I was able to find several references to "melbourne earthquake" a second. It was only a day or two ago that Twitter added the search functionality to their main page, and it's very handy for checking out trends. (Previously, it wasn't accessible from twitter.com but instead simply lived at search.twitter.com). I would have grabbed a screenshot for this post, but it seems to be broken at the moment. Oh well.

Reddit, one of my favourite websites and definitely favourite social news site, was abuzz with the news nearly as soon as it happened. Self posts and news articles, particularly on the Australia subreddit, were everywhere.

My point with this post was that the internet told me nearly as soon as this earthquake happened, within nearly a minute or so. It was at least ten minutes before Sky News decided to tell me. The internet is truly a great tool, and delivering breaking news is just one of the amazing services it can offer. We should be thankful to live in times like this.

Tim

The death of the clean feed?

2009-02-27T21:26:00.004+11:00

At the moment, I'm very happy. Number one, it's my birthday, and I've just come into the possession of a few hundred dollars. Number two, the plan for an Australian nationwide internet censorship regime has all but been shot down.

Thanks to an opposition from the Coalition, Greens, and both independent senators (with Nick Xenophon recently doing what he does best and changing his mind), the clean feed now seems to have no hope of passing in the Senate. I don't mean to count my chickens before they hatch, but this almost certainly looks like the death of the clean feed.

Everyone who showed their opposition to this censorship have helped shoot this plan down. Whether you organised a protest or signed a petition, you helped raise awareness of the flaws and inconsistencies in the government's clean feed plan and fueled the ever-growing opposition. We can all give ourselves a good pat on the back for a job well done, and I'm glad that free speech and common sense have prevailed, for now.

Tim

Damn you, technology!

2009-02-19T00:48:00.003+11:00

Windows died completely (various problems with the graphics, RAM, and a battery issue that may be software or hardware related). So, this is Ubuntu 8.10, running as the only OS on my computer.

The controls are Inverted and the window border is called gotchione. Icons are Tangerine. But you probably don't need to know all that.

Speaking of technology failing, my trusty mobile phone (a Nokia 6085) that I've had for over two years, has finally died. It's been living without a front cover for a while now (and I admit that the exposed circuitboard looks quite cool), but the screen has finally decided to stop working. I'll get myself a cheap handset probably tomorrow (I'd like a fancy phone, but money is the issue).

Thanks for reading,

Tim

College

2009-02-17T16:02:00.003+11:00

In case you didn't know, I'm back at school, for year 11. I'm at a much bigger school than what I'm used to, but the classes and the people are both great.

I'll post my timetable here, so I can link people to it if they're interested (and since this blog entry will also appear as a note on Facebook).

MONDAY
Morning: Free
Midmorning: Digital Art
Afternoon: Drama

TUESDAY
Morning: English Writing
Midmorning: Drama
Afternoon: Free

WEDNESDAY
Morning: Digital Art
Midmorning: English Writing
Afternoon: Free
Night: French

THURSDAY
Morning: Free
Midmorning: Free
Afternoon: Digital Art

FRIDAY
Morning: Drama
Midmorning: Free
Afternoon: English Writing

Any questions, or if you're in Hobart and want to hang out, comment, email, or somehow contact me.

In other news, I have my learners' license and am learning to drive properly. I'll be on the road soon. Let's just hope I don't run over any pets, cars, or people.

Apart from that, talk to you all soon.

Tim

Poe

2009-01-31T16:37:00.002+11:00

http://www.conservapedia.com/Mystery:Why_Do_Non-Conservatives_Exist%3F

Honestly, I'm not sure whether or not to call Poe's Law or not.

Also, while Wikipedia'ing Poe's Law to try and find a suitable link, I discovered that there is in fact another (and probably older) definition -

'That there is a maximum desirable length for poems: "the unit of poetry must be fixed by the reader's capacity of attention, and ... the limits of a poem must accord with the limits of a single movement of intellectual apprehension and emotional exaltation"'

You learn something new every day.

Someday my prints will come...

2009-01-08T17:31:00.004+11:00

...and they did! My two signed xkcd prints arrived, and they look wonderful on the wall.

The first is of Duty Calls, and proudly hangs in the living room, behind the TV (the delivery sheet said it fit in a 8'x10' frame, which wasn't exactly correct, hence why it doesn't quite fit). The second is of the Electromagnetic Spectrum, and greets visitors as they enter the door.

Hooray for geekiness!

Tim

Google Trends

2008-12-26T20:33:00.004+11:00

Inspired by the most recent xkcd comic, I decided to check out some common search terms and where they get googled the most. (I got bored and immature towards the end, and I've edited this post several times as I've thought of new ones)

google - Montreal, Canada
obama, mccain, biden, and palin - Reston, VA, USA (no idea what's going on there)
windows - Mexico City, Mexico
mac - San Francisco, CA, USA
linux - Beijing, China
ubuntu - Milan, Italy
firefox - Frankfurt Am Main, Germany
god - Atlanta, GA, USA
jesus - Lima, Peru
is there a god - Dallas, TX, USA
christmas - Manchester, UK
is global warming real - Atlanta, GA, USA
gay marriage - Boston, MA, USA
proposition 8 - Salt Lake City, UT, USA
am i pregnant - Thames Ditton, UK
why am i fat - Toronto, Canada
bacon - Seattle, WA, USA
broccoli - St. Louis, MO, USA
running for president - Miami, FL, USA
running mates - Washington, DC, USA
define (ie, looking up words using Google) - Mexico City, Mexico
define irony - Washington, DC, USA
define internet - Makati, Philippines
jfgi (just fucking google it) - Moscow, Russia
the answer to life the universe and everything - Stockholm, Sweden
online dating - Prague, Czech Republic
paris hilton - Melbourne, Australia
pamela anderson - Lima, Peru
jenna jameson - Helsinki, Finland
angelina jolie - Toronto, Canada
porn - Manchester, UK
hardcore - Zurich, Switzerland
penis - Los Angeles, CA, USA
vagina - Jakarta, Indonesia (whoa, a lot of Indonesians google this)
sex - Delhi, India
pussy - Tampa, FL, USA
hentai - Jakarta, Indonesia (hmm)
fuck - Delhi, India

shit - Melbourne, Australia
cunt - Brisbane, Australia
motherfucker - Oslo, Norway
tits - Birmingham, UK
balls - Phoenix, AZ, USA

And finaly:

why am i single - New York, NY, USA

Tim

Christmas

2008-12-25T22:13:00.003+11:00

As much as I was banging on in the last post about not wanting to observe Christmas because I'm not religious, you can't help but get caught up in the festivites. And we put our Christmas tree up last night, went to my grandmother's for lunch, and had my uncle up for Christmas dinner. It was all very nice, and not wanting anything in particular, I was pleasantly surprised with my presents.

My parents were kind enough to get me:

A 320GB external hard drive (:D)
Bill Bailey's Tinsel Worm DVD
Four sets of earphones (cause they always break so quickly)
A Writer's Tale, about the making of the latest Doctor Who series
Catherine Tate's autobiography
Derren Brown's Tricks of the Mind
A book of songs to play on guitar (even though I don't play guitar, they work just as well for piano)

My grandmother bought me:

Some nice Belgian chocolates
$100

And my uncle got me:

Chocolate candy cane thing
$40 K-mart gift voucher
$25 Sanity gift voucher

So I feel quite spoilt and satisfied. Have a great rest of the year, guys, and I will see you in 2009.

Thank you, Victoria.

2008-12-17T00:52:00.004+11:00

Victorian schools will now have the option to have religious education classes taught by atheists, or rather, those who say that there is "no evidence of any supernatural power".

Thank you very much for letting common sense prevail. Luckily going to a small private school run by fairly liberal atheists (or at least Christians who do not follow the Bible very closely - I'm never sure with my principals), I've never been subjected to any kind of religious education, but from what I've heard from other students who haven't been so fortunate, it is a load of bullshit. Basically, it is Christian propaganda - maybe touching on some other religions but basically teaching the Bible as if it were fact. Having classes taught by atheists is surely a great way to restore some integrity to religious education - a very important part of the curriculum if taught in the proper way.

As always, here is a stupid quote from Jenny Stokes, research director for the fundamentalist Christian group (who I admit I'd never heard of) the Salt Shakers: ""If you go there, where do you stop? What about witchcraft or Satanism? If you accredit humanism, then those things would have an equal claim to be taught in schools."

Uh-huh. Because humanism is even remotely comparable to Satanism or witchcraft. The whole premise is that humanists or atheists don't believe in Satan or witches in the first place. And while we're arguing semantics, surely Satanism and witchcraft are just as valid beliefs as Christianity? They really are just as absurd and even quite similar when you look at them side by side. Now I do respect your rights to have your beliefs and opinions, however stupid I think tem to be, but I'm sorry - if you bring out that whole atheist to Satanist comparison, you are an idiot. Plain and simple.

And Jenny Stokes does it again: "[religious instruction in state schools should be Christian because] basically we are a Christian nation".

Argh. There's no helping some people.

A note on Christmas: I'm not waging some "war on Christmas" like a lot of people go on about. I say "happy holidays" not to be politically correct, but rather to be secular. I just simply see the December period as a time of various religious festivals, and "happy holidays" refers to all of them, the New Year, and the general partying and holidays that follow. I'm ignoring Christmas as much as I can (my parents will probably do presents and that on the day, however, and then my grandmother will fear for my soul if I don't turn up at her place on Christmas day), but I really don't care if you celebrate it or not. I agree that it is a great time, and brings out a lot of kindness and generosity in people. I love that. Go and have fun, get drunk, eat a lot, and buy lots of nice things for your friends and family. And have fun.

In case this is my last blog entry for 2008, have a good holiday season and New Year. I'll be back to blog again in '09. You know I will.

Au revoir,

Tim

No clean feed protest postponed

2008-12-13T15:20:00.004+11:00

The rain bucketed down in Hobart today, and so Tasmania's protest against the government's clean feed was postponed until next week.

I'd say about fifty people turned up at various times, however, which was quite impressive considering the terrible weather. Hopefully next week there will be a much larger crowd, however (and nicer weather!).

Southern Cross were there though, and they filmed us standing around in the rain doing a bit. They also interviewed me and John Dalton, from Digital Tasmania. Watch the news tonight for hopefully a bit of coverage of us getting wet.

I also did an interview with Edge Radio, although I'm not sure when it will broadcast. Keep an ear out for that, though. WIN and ABC cameras were also at Parliament Lawns, although I think they were just covering something else involving cars parked on the grass that also happened to be going on. They may have got some footage of us, however.

The protest will now be held on Saturday the 20th of December, at 11am. I hope to see as many as possible there!

Screenshot - 23/11/08

2008-11-23T21:38:00.002+11:00

A WindowBlinds theme called "Roundness of Edge". (plus, a sneak peek of my NaNoWriMo novel, which is nowhere near done yet but will be done by the end of the month!)

An Open Letter to the United States of America

2008-11-06T23:38:00.002+11:00

Dear America,

Thank you so very much for electing Barack Obama as your next President.

As you may be aware, I've followed this election very closely over the past year or so, and even though I may have become disheartened with him at some points, I can honestly tell you that I've never been as excited about a politician as I have been about Barack Obama. I say that as an Australian who not only cares about the American people but is also concerned about Australia's relations with what many call the most powerful nation on Earth. The decisions and policy choices that the President of the United States makes affect my country and the whole world, particularly with a worsening economic crisis and two wars in the Middle East. I can honestly say that I believe that you, the people of America, have chosen the right man.

I am not one to base my support on skin colour; although I am overjoyed that a black man has become President. If your country needed any proof that you have come a long way from the civil rights struggles of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s, this is it. To most Americans, a difference in skin colour is now almost meaningless when it comes to how you treat your fellow man. And that's wonderful.

But that is not the main reason why I am truly excited. The majority of you spoke out on November 4th. You voted for change. You elected the man who could and hopefully will really make a difference - to end a meaningless war as quickly as possible, to restore the country's troubled economy, and to restore America's position as a truly respected nation in the world. You voted to change the course of your country's history, and bring a much-needed change to the United States.

And for that, Americans, I couldn't be prouder.

Tim

Windows

2008-10-30T18:14:00.003+11:00

I haven't posted some screenshots for a while, so I thought I might do just that...

Windows Vista, SP1. The fonts have been changed to Verdana. If you're not sure how to change the system fonts, just follow this simple tutorial:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Click 'Customize colors'.
3. If Aero's your theme, the Window Color and Apperance window will open. If so, click on 'Open classic appearance properties for more color options', and the Appearance Settings window will open. If you're not using Aero, the Appearance Settings window will open anyway.
4. Select the color scheme you want to change the fonts for, and click Advanced.
5. An Advanced Appearance window will open. Select an item from the dropdown menu, and change the font, colour, and size using the other dropdown menus.
6. ...profit?

I assume it works in a similar way on other Windows systems.

But anyway, I like my desktop at the moment. It's simple but looks rather sexy, if I say so myself. Unfortunately I can't remember where I got the wallpaper from, but if I find it, I'll add it in.

I'm using Firefox 3.0.3, with the Camifox theme. Notable extensions include: Socialite, StumbleUpon, Google Reader Watcher, Twitterfox, Gmail Notifier, and FoxyTunes.

That's all from me for now. More posts on seemingly random topics will come.

Tim

Dear Mr. Conroy - please no clean feed.

2008-10-24T23:16:00.005+11:00

As you may be aware, Australia's Labor government is attempting to implement a mandatory internet filtering scheme, led by Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy, that some say may even silence criticism of the government and be similar to the censorship in countries such as China and Middle Eastern nations.

What follows is my letter to Senator Conroy, voicing my opposition for this scheme. I encourage any Australians who care about freedom of speech and epxression and those who support net neutrality to do the same.

Dear Minister,

As you may be aware, your recent plans for a mandatory “clean feed” of Australia's internet service have created some agitation amongst voters nationwide. I am writing to implore you to reconsider your support of this program.

Currently Australia's broadband service remains among the slowest and the most expensive of all developed countries, with some of the most restrictive plans that have high fees for some services that in many other countries are free. A “clean feed” of our nationwide internet service would not only reduce our broadband speeds even further below the world standard, but would also send prices for an internet connection skyrocketing far beyond what many deem acceptable to pay. The idea of spending millions of dollars on such a program seems frankly absurd when you consider Australia's already high internet costs.

Furthermore, a “clean feed” program such as the one that you have proposed is immoral and a task that the federal government should not have the duty of implementing. While I agree that the duty of protecting children from harmful material online is a very important one, it is surely the responsibility of parents or guardians, rather than the federal government. Also, you have not made it clear what exactly this mandatory filtering plans to block. Will internet users soon be unable to access content that goes against the moral code of the federal government? Shall political activist groups or anti-government websites also find their websites blocked, if they speak out against the Labor administration? The Western world often prides itself on its freedom of speech and open internet standards, and some say that a mandatory filtering program such as this one rivals similar censorship in oppressive countries such as Iran and China.

Censorship is never right, and it is not fair for your government to inflict their moral views on every single Australian. The internet is a bastion of freedom of speech and expression, and to deny these rights to Australians by filtering and censoring the internet is immoral and will almost certainly not be well received by the majority of the population. I, as did many Australians, expected better of the Rudd government and did not anticipate censorship and stifling of our internet connection.

Lastly, even if you disagree with the statement that this program is immoral and infringes on civil rights, the fact still remains that such a scheme is an enormous waste of taxpayer money, and is never guaranteed to work completely. Tech-savvy internet users will always find ways to circumvent the filtering through overseas web proxies, basically rendering the censorship useless if it can easily be bypassed.

Australia already ranks fairly low in the world as far as quality and freedom of its internet service. This “clean feed” program would be an enormous blow to both. I implore you to consider abandoning this program, and instead concentrate on improving our country's broadband infrastructure and service, rather than choking it.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hurd
Lenah Valley, TAS

A sex offender...for taking nude photos of yourself.

2008-10-20T21:40:00.002+11:00

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20081008/NEWS01/810080302

(Whenever I get annoyed about something like this, I always begin to think that I'm just a naive teenager who will grow out of this stage and eventually grow to realise how necessary such measures are. But for now, I'll just sit here and vent, as the naive teenager I'm sure I am).

I have yet another gripe with ridiculous anti-child pornography laws. If you'll read the article, you'll see that a 15-year-old girl has been arrested for distributing nude photos...of herself.

Here's where I see the problem with the current laws. Presumably, these laws are in place to prevent the exploitation of children by those who wish to do them harm or take advantage of them. I see this as a victimless crime. No one is harmed or exploited in any way - anyone who receives the photos doesn't have to look at them, and the girl may do some damage to her reputation, but that's it. True, she is technically "distributing child pornography". But this is my problem with the current anti-child pornography laws - they are missing the point. The laws should be in place to prevent exploitation or harm to children. There was none of that in this case. And the girl is punished by law and labelled as a "sex offender" for nothing else except being a bit of a tart (don't mean to be harsh, and I don't know her or anything...but she sounds like one). All she deserves, in my humble opinion, is a slap on the wrist from her parents. Not jail and a listing on the sex offender registry.

Tim

Debate #3 - Hempstead. NY

2008-10-20T19:45:00.003+11:00

I finally got around to watching the third debate. It was interesting, but nothing we haven't seen before - just the same rhetoric and question-avoiding as the first two debates. Although I don't mean to be cynical - both candidates performed well. Again, I'd hand a narrow victory to Obama, and although the polls seem to suggest that he trounced McCain, I think it was the closest of all three debates. Bob Schieffer was a great moderator too, and he didn't let the candidates run over time and actually asked a wide range of questions (I was pleased to see education and abortion get mentions).

There's not really much to say, as this was so similar to the other two debates. I hope these three and the vice presidential debate have helped undecided voters to make up their mind. And while I'm at it, I'll add my own bit of propaganda, directed at any Americans who might be reading this who are undecided or leaning towards voting Republican:

Obama '08. Please. As an Australian who is affected by what America does, and as someone who cares deeply about the American people and the people of the world, please elect this man. Yes, I know he's not perfect. There are a lot of things about him that I don't like - his religion, his stance on LGBT issues, his support of the PATRIOT Act - but for crying out loud, he's the best chance you've got. He'll help you get much better health care and education systems, and help get you out of the Middle East and restore your economy. Your country just can't stand another four years of Republican tyranny. Plus you'll stop me from writing angry blog posts criticising President McCain. You don't want that, do you?

I understand that there are third parties out there who you might like more than Obama. I'd prefer Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney to be president, but please, just face it - it's not going to happen. You're wasting your vote. If you can't have one of those candidates, vote for the next best thing. Barack Obama 2008.

This will probably be my last blog entry (at least on this topic) before the election. Vote well.

Tim

Debate #2 - Nashville

2008-10-09T20:24:00.002+11:00

I must say that I do like the town hall style format, and I'd prefer all if not at least two of the debates to have had that format. It's a lot better to hear questions from a wide range of voters than just from one moderator.

This second debate was quite interesting and revealing (regardless of the constant interruptions by Tom Brokaw). I would've preferred to have seen a wider range of issues covered (in all of the debates - it seems to be just economy and foreign policy, and if any other topic is mentioned, it's usually in relation to the economy anyway). And I think that the questions could have been more creative as well as diverse, but I guess we have Tom Brokaw to thank for that, if he chose them. What annoyed me about both candidates though, is how none of them would answer any of the damn questions. I know that it must be extremely hard to ad lib a lot of those speeches (I certainly could never manage it), but most of what both of the candidates were saying just seemed to be the same speeches that they'd memorised prior to the debate. And that's okay, for a while, but I got sick of hearing it after a short time and actually wanted to hear their answers to the questions.

And who did I think won? Well, McCain again did well, but I'd hand another victory to Obama (and this is not me just being biased as an Obama supporter, I swear).

Random note: How many times did McCain say "my friends"? I bet over 100.

Tim

VP Debate - St. Louis

2008-10-04T23:00:00.003+10:00

Just a few quick notes on this week's vice presidential debate in St. Louis.

Just like McCain performed a lot better than was expected at the first presidential debate, so did Palin with this debate. Although I think it's a bit sad that she performed above expectations, when her expectations were obviously so incredibly low to begin with. Her poor performance in the few interviews that she gave, coupled with that Couric thing the other day when she couldn't name a news source that she read made her coherent sentences in the debate seem amazing. I can only see this as good news for the Republicans, as moderates that may have been considering voting McCain/Palin now might tend to have a more favourable opinion of Palin. Although it doesn't seem nearly enough to sway any committed Democrat or left-wing independent.

Having said all that, I think that Biden killed her. He seemed to have the upper hand by far with his experience and smooth talking. True, he stumbled a little more than Palin did, but anyone actually listening to what he was saying could see that there was far more depth and logic to his words. The part where he mentioned his dead wife was touching, and made Palin's comment beforehand ("she'll have her rewards in heaven", or something like that) seem either tactless or heartless. Although I'm now slighty less convinced that Palin is totally ignorant, she still seems very oblivious to a lot of things and...well, a nutcase, frankly.

Although anyone voting in November should remember (hey, that rhymes!) that you're not voting for Biden or Palin. Try and focus more on either Obama or McCain (or whatever third party your affiliatons lie with), as they will be the president, after all. It's still nice to hear from the other half of the ticket though, and these running mates show where the main candidates' affiliations and ideals lie.

Still looking forward to the remaining two debates, and the rest of this slowly dwindling election season.

Tim

P.S. Palin, for crying out loud, it's pronounced new-clear. Not nuke-ular.

A word every day!

2008-09-28T11:34:00.002+10:00

Wanting a small project to occupy my time, I've created a word of the day Twitter. I'll update it (as the name suggests) daily, and post an interesting word and its definition.

(there only seems to be one other active word of the day on Twitter as I type this - twitter.com/wordoftheday was unfortunately taken by an account with zero activity)

My regular Twitter is here, if you are interested.

Tim

Debate #1 - Oxford, Mississippi

2008-09-27T21:10:00.003+10:00

I watched Al Jazeera's coverage of the first presidential debate this morning (because Livestation trumpeted something about their broadcast when I turned on my computer, mostly). It was quite informative and I discovered a lot of things that I didn't know about the two candidates. I've been asked many times today who I thought 'won' the debate. While I think that most people on both sides of the political spectrum will agree with me when I say that McCain fared better than he was expected, I'd still hand a victory to Obama (CNN apparently agrees with me). However as an Obama supporter, I'm still worried to see such a strong performance by McCain.

A thought that struck me while watching the debate, particularly when they were discussing the Middle East, was how far both candidates have moved towards the centre. Obama seemed less left-wing and McCain less right-wing - although it may have just been tactics by both sides to win the votes of moderate swing voters, or those who are disillusioned by each candidates' VP choice. Watching this debate, it really seemed like there was not that much difference between the two candidates (and I'm not necessarily sure if this is a good or bad thing - I'm thinking bad). This became particularly apparent for me when Obama was discussing Iraq. Earlier on in his campaign he seemed so anti-war and railed on about how he wanted to pull troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. Today, the only discussion on the topic was about tactics and strategy (eg McCain wants to stay in Iraq, and Obama wants to send more troops to Afghanistan and even Pakistan). Now that there are no (mainstream) candidates that are anti-war, as there were in the primaries, there is no reason for Obama to continue with his 'pull out of Iraq' rhetoric. So I guess that whatever the result, America will be stuck in Iraq for quite a few years to come.

As many other people have pointed out, including third-party candidates in the debates would probably have been a good idea (more than 50% of voters polled say they would like to see Nader and Barr in the debates). I'm all for inviting Nader, Barr, McKinney, hell, even Baldwin along, but then the format of the debate would probably have to be changed quite a bit. And I do enjoy the standard bipartisan debate.

The next presidential debate will be on October 7 in Nashville. It will be more a 'town-hall' style debate, where audience members ask questions (which should be more interesting than the others). The third debate is on October 15 in Hempstead, NY (focusing on the economy and domestic affairs). There is also a vice presidential debate before both of them on October 2 in St. Louis. I look forwad to seeing Biden and Palin come head to head. Election season is exciting!

Tim

Shiny new layout

2008-09-21T20:15:00.004+10:00

I've just spent the best part of an hour trying to find a nice new layout for my blog. And I think I've stumbled upon a good one. I found it on eblogtemplates, a fantastic site for blog layouts (not just Blogger - WordPress as well).

Hope you all like it as much as I do!

Tim

EDIT:

And as of a few hours later, I've changed the layout again. I'm such a fickle person when it comes to things like customisation, but I've made a decision to stay with this one for now. This lovely simplistic layout is courtesy of Suckmylolly.com.

(I just forgot how to spell 'courtesy' when typing that. My brain's obviously decaying).

In other news, I'm back to school tomorrow. My last term of high school. It should be a bit of fun.

Tim

Confused

2008-09-12T16:21:00.005+10:00

I'm aware that I haven't updated for quite a while. I'm still figuring out what exactly to do with this blog.

More updates will come fairly soon, as soon as I've thought of a direction in which I can take this blog (and website, generally).

Thanks for reading, nonetheless.

Tim

A half-baked idea to amuse myself

2008-08-15T22:12:00.003+10:00

I'm thinking of becoming one of those people who post crudely drawn webcomics on their blog.

I can't draw to save my life, but I have a blog, a tablet, and a fairly decent imagination.

I might post an installment or two. Although probably nothing will come of this idea, so don't get your hopes up.

Tim

Random musings

2008-08-15T21:44:00.003+10:00

I thought I should post a blog entry, as I've been pretty quite for a while. I'll just give you a rundown of what's been going on in my life recently.

Karate's been pretty hectic recently. I'm up to attending four classes a week - a class for the instructor training course on Monday night, an ordinary class on Tuesday night, a senior class on Wednesday night, and then another ordinary class on Friday night. The reason for attending the two senior classes is that I'm training to be an instructor. It's something I've wanted to do for literally years and years - although I only just got the chance to officially take the course this year, when I turned sixteen. The course is eight to ten weeks in duration (I'm pretty sure), and it's been pretty easy so far - just recapping stuff that I already know from doing karate for eight and a half years. But there should only be a few weeks to go, and then I'm officially an instructor. Can't wait.

I've been getting back into graphic design and Photoshop recently - I've played around making some things in Photoshop in the past few days after taking quite a long break from it. I don't think I've previously plugged my deviantART page, so check it out (http://sunshineskies.deviantart.com). There's a bit of photography and a bit of old Photoshop jobs on there (as well as a few fractals that I created ages back using Apophysis). Most of it's not exactly of the highest quality, but hopefully you'll find some semi-interesting stuff on there.

That's about it from me for now. I'm going off to work experience at a filmmaking studio for three days next week. So I'll tell you how that goes. Bye for now.

Tim

Drama

2008-07-29T22:37:00.003+10:00

Well as my Facebook status proudly proclaims, drama is taking over my life. And I'm loving it.

Well, maybe 'taking over my life' is a bit of an overstatement. But still, it's been shall we say quite prominent in my life recently? First of all is the play our year is doing, Cosi. Our teacher's been making quite a big deal about this and I think the whole class (me especially) are really very excited to perform it. For those of you not familiar with the play, google it and you should find a bit of information - it's set in a mental institution in Melbourne in 1971 (although we're adapting it to be set in Hobart in 2008 - a fairly easy task apart from all of the references to the Vietnam War and to communism having to be changed to references to the Iraq War and to terrorism) and features a cast of mostly insane mental patients who are charged with the task of performing a rendition of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. It's a comedic but also very serious play that seems like heaps of fun to produce and to perform. At the moment I'm playing the parts of silent and traumatised ex-lawyer Henry, as well as social worker Justin, although those parts may shift around a bit at some time in the future.

Also I've been called into the year nines' class to play the lead role in their rendition of Alice in Wonderland. With the titular character's name changed to Alex (because I, of course, am male, and although the nines were insistent on putting me in a dress, that would distract a bit from what is meant to be a sort of serious role), this version, penned by the teacher, is half true to the original story and half a parody of Alice in Wonderland and of the fairtytale genre. I can't comment that much more on the script as I haven't seen the full script yet (in fact, I don't think it's even been written). But nevertheless, it's fun to join another class for drama in addition to my own.

In August I'm attending some stand-up comedy workshops, which have really given me the motivation and inspiration to get back into writing some comedy. I've decided to give musical comedy a go, just for something different - I've thought up two fairly cool ideas for songs and have been tinkering with some piano chords (I can't play the guitar, so I guess I'd have to get a keyboard to go on stage with. Now who to borrow a David O'Doherty-style Casio keyboard from?). The workshops start on Sunday, unless I'm mistaken, so I really should get my act together soon.

And (not really drama, per se) in a few weeks time I start work experience. I've been put at a filmmaking studio down on the wharf (Wide Angle Productions - google them). For me this seems like a brilliant opportunity and I'm actually quite surprised that my teacher was able to get a position here, with work experience positions for year tens becoming fewer and fewer in recent years with more things like TAFE courses, etc. But I'm really looking forward to my time with Wide Angle - I spoke to them on the phone today and they seem very nice, very casual but very committed to their work. Plus filmmaking is something I really want to get into after recently having my first taste of it and enjoying myself quite a lot.

That's all from me really. Stay tuned for some (perhaps) remotely interesting content.

Tim

New (un)fancy start page

2008-07-23T21:53:00.003+10:00

Well after a fair bit of tweaking and playing around with Google Apps/Godaddy, I've finally got my domain/website set up the way I want. Domains and CNAMEs and DNSs and everything have always confused me. And they still do.

However, I've managed to set up a fairly simple start page. I made it with Google's Page Creator, because I know absolutely zero HTML or CSS or anything like that. But one day I'll learn. Then I'll pretty up the start page and add some more to this (slowly growing) website.

The start page can be found at http://www.spanglegluppet.com (http://spanglegluppet.com will redirect to it). At the moment it's just got links to me across the web (including a link to this blog), but that should change soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Watch this...well, that space for some changes coming soon.

Tim

Show them your desktop!

2008-07-20T17:55:00.002+10:00

I recently stumbled across an interesting project. It's called 'Show us your desktop', and it's designed to be a study of computer users' desktops and how they use them. And it couldn't be simpler to be a part of - simply take a screenshot of your desktop and send it off in an email.

Check it out!

Tim

Mustn't forget the 'blog dot'.

2008-07-20T12:54:00.001+10:00

After a bit of stuffing around with my domain, I've now fixed the blog so it's actually posted at blog.spanglegluppet.com. spanglegluppet.com now just gives you a 404, but I'm going to try and work on making it a cool start page of sorts...time to ask someone who has the slightest clue about web design.

Tim

iPod touch firmware 2.0

2008-07-19T21:49:00.000+10:00

After coming extremely close to going out and forking out an exorbitant amount of money for a 3G iPhone, I came to my senses and just decided to upgrade to the 2.0 firmware on my iPod touch. My touch was previously jailbroken on 1.1.4, but I did a clean restore and tried the latest firmware update, with the AppStore. And it's been great so far - I love the small improvements to apps such as Mail and Calculator, and the third-party applications are brilliant, mostly. I've only tried the free ones so far, I don't know if I really want to go paying money for applications, but there's a lot you can find for free in the AppStore. MySpace and Facebook both have great native apps, and there's all-new 'official' versions of Tap Tap Revolution (now called Tap Tap Revenge) and the Twitter client Twinkle (now called Twitterific). But the (free) app that really blew me away was an app called Remote. Remote allows you to wirelessly control your Mac or PC's iTunes library using your Wi-Fi network, and it works absolutely flawlessly. The interface for controlling your iTunes is exactly the same as the Music app on the iPod itself, and it works quickly and painlessly over my Wi-Fi network. Plus, it couldn't be simpler to set up. Just type the four-digit code it gives you into iTunes and you're ready to go.

I may try out some of the paid apps if I can find any that really take my fancy. Unfortunately, all the good gaming apps such as Super Monkey Ball and Crash Bandicoot are quite expensive (AU$12.99 each for those two), but I'll try some of them out when I have some money to waste.

Tim

And my domain is up.

2008-07-19T15:35:00.001+10:00

Yep. www.spanglegluppet.com (or just spanglegluppet.com) is now me (namely, this blog).

I'm going to work on adding more to the domain, but for now, it's just this blog.

Still, this calls for celebration.

Tim

My Windows desktop at the moment.

2008-07-17T22:05:00.000+10:00

I believe I've already mentioned that I've switched back to Windows after my Wubi-installed Ubuntu mysteriously disappeared. And I like Windows, I really do. It's a great operating system, despite what a lot of Apple and Linux fanboys say about it, basically any program runs on it, and it's a lot more customisable than you think. Here's how I've got Windows running at the moment.

It's the Windows Vista Basic colour scheme (don't really need the Aero effects). Except the default font (Segoe UI) for Vista, which is terribly ugly, has been changed to DejaVu Sans, one of the default Linux fonts. I've always liked the default Vista look-and-feel, except for the font, so this is a pretty simple workaround.

As far as the programs I've got running at the moment, I'm using the latest version of Firefox (FF3) as my default web browser. This is just the default Firefox theme for Vista, and the main extensions that I use are ChatZilla (for my very limited IRC time), FoxyTunes for controlling music within Firefox, Stealther for if I ever need to privately browse, and the StumbleUpon toolbar.

I use iTunes as a music player (yeah, I actually like it, even though a lot of people seem to have some major problems with it). It works great for me and it's really the only program that will do everything I want with my iPod touch (I know other programs can sync and everything, but as far as software updates and the like go, iTunes is really the best bet).

For IM, I use Digsby. It's a great little application that not only lets you log in with your MSN/AIM/Yahoo!/Gtalk account (and more, that I think I may have forgotten), but allows you to check your news feeds from Myspace and Facebook, your email from nearly any mail server, and your Twitter account. Plus it's small, inobtrusive, and efficient. Check it out at digsby.com.

I'm currently using VLC for video playback, the OpenOffice suite for word processing/spreadsheets/presentations, Foxit Reader for PDFs, and for a BitTorrent client, I use the BitTorrent program itself. If you haven't heard of or tried any of these programs, I definitely recommend you google them and check them out.

That's all for me for today. Good night all!

Tim

Spot the ridiculous exaggerations in this post. I counted four.

2008-07-17T21:55:00.000+10:00

Yep. I realised that absolutely every blog out there uses that Minima "Georgia-on-white-background-with-a-bit-of-orange" layout. So I've changed mine. Go me.

Two random thoughts:

I have a disgusting cold. My nose is constantly running and when it's not running it's bleeding. I've gone through several boxes of tissues in a day. And I've been quite bored whilst home from school. I swear I've read everything on the internet ever.

And tomorrow I've got to head off to an orientation day at Rosny College. I'm still not entirely sold on Rosny and I may end up going to Elizabeth instead, and I wanted to try both of the orientation days, but they're both on at the same time so I can really only go to one. Should be just a fairly interesting look around the college and maybe I'll put some thought into what courses I want to do and similar decisions that I'll have to make sooner or later.

Bye for now!

Tim

Random thoughts from the peanut gallery.

2008-07-06T00:21:00.000+10:00

Well, a bit has been going on in my life. Here are some of the first things that come to my head.

School has been fairly busy. An awfully large workload for grade ten's second term. I currently have a poem to write, a theatre review to do, and two monologues and a French poem to learn, although they are just a small fraction of all of this week's work. Still, I'm coping. Drama is awfully fun, we have a new teacher who is going through some proper drama with us, finally. As I mentioned before, I've got two monologues to learn - a speech by Rob from the novel High Fidelity (I'll admit I haven't read the book and have only watched the 2000 film with John Cusack), and one of Macbeth's speeches from, of course, Shakespeare's Macbeth. Our class is doing a production of Louis Nowra's play Cosi at the end of this term (Google it - I'll admit I don't know much information about it yet). I've been (preemptively) cast as Henry, which seems like an interesting role, although with not many lines. The production still should be fun though. One of the things I'm looking forward to the most about heading off to college next year is being involved with all of the productions - I'm going to Rosny College (I think, unless Elizabeth manages to entice me at the last minute), which have an excellent drama program and do some great plays and musicals, most of which we've seen with school. Speaking of which, we're going to see their production of Sweet Charity sometime next week, I think. Should be good.

Still on the school front, I've (along with some assistance from some colleagues/friends) recently finished making a small film out of all the footage taken mostly by me and some of my friends on our trip to China in May. The film is under ten minutes, and while it may seem like a small feat, it's my first real foray into the world of filmmaking, something that I've found quite enjoyable (we only have Windows Movie Maker on the computers at school - I know, poor us - but it was more than satisfactory). I've received quite a lot of praise about the film - some of the primary school kids wanted to see it twice when we showed it on Friday! And for work experience this year, my teacher's organised for me to spend three days at a local filmmaking studio. Brilliant!

Okay, let's see what else has been going on. I'm back to Windows. Bit of a long story as to why, but I tried to boot into Ubuntu one day to find it missing. No idea where it had gone, just an error message stating that it couldn't find the file/partition (it was installed via Wubi). With not much knowledge of partitioning and things like that (I know Wubi doesn't use a separate partition, but it still managed to confuse me), I just deleted Ubuntu and Wubi from the computer, freeing up about 30GB of space on my Windows side. So now I'm just back to Vista. Which, for what it's worth, isn't all that bad. I'm delighted to have my wi-fi working well again and to be able to use practically any program that I desire. Plus, I've made it look nice too. Just a bit of colour tweaking and changing the title fonts around (got to love the DejaVu font family - check it out and download it if you can), and I think it looks great. Although I'm a fickle person when it comes to an OS's general look and feel, and I generally end up changing it every few days. Oh well, it suits me for now.

I've been spending a lot of time on the internet generally, and a lot of time on sites like Digg and reddit. I've started to realise how fun they can really be - making connections, reading comments, posting your own opinions, having converstations, etc. Social news and bookmarking is something you should really try out, especially if you read the news and random articles on the internet anyway and have something to say.

Something that I don't think I've mentioned before is that I've been starting to get involved with xkcd's geohashing. It's a system that generates a set of random coordinates every day, anywhere on the globe, within 'graticules', formed by lines of latitude and longitude. Now, I haven't been to any actual geohash locations yet - partially because I'm sixteen, in school, and don't have a care, but also because of Tasmania's geography and the fact that a lot of the locations are in either inaccessible or impractical locations. There are a few geohashers in Hobart that I know of. It'll be great when I can finally actually get to go to one.

Music-wise, I've been listening to some fairly random bands. Death Cab for Cutie's new album, Narrow Stairs, is amazing and you should really listen to it sometime soon. Operator Please's Yes Yes Vindictive is also quite a good and different upbeat album. I've been tistening to the Dresden Dolls's Yes Virginia for the first time in quite a while, as well as random artists on sites like thesixtyone and Jamendo. Check everything that I've just mentioned in this paragraph out - you won't be disappointed.

As far as literature goes, I've been reading a bit of Agatha Christie. Started off with the Murder of Roger Ackroyd (stop right here in the small chance that you're reading it and don't want spoilers), and I thought it was a great book, but the stupid twist at the end really ruins it. Some people just think it's novel and clever having an unreliable narrator, but I think it's ridiculous and really spoils the book. Meh, who am I to complain though. Now reading her earlier novel Death on the Nile, which is shaping up to be quite exciting. Only a few chapters into it as we speak. For school we just finished reading an Australian playwright's adaption of Hedda Gabler, and are currently reading Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang.

At the moment I'm at Dad's for about a month while Mum holidays in Europe (lucky her). And Dad's away for two days in Sydney, so I'm just here with Nan. Feels nice to (practically) have the house to one's self.

Anyway, I'm off. See you later all.

Tim

Ubuntu, customised.

2008-06-17T17:45:00.000+10:00

Well, it's a work in progress.

The dock-like application is Avant Window Navigator (avant-window-navigator is the name of the package). Its basic function is to show the currently open windows and provide a replacement for the bottom panel. I have Avant customised with shortcuts to commonly-used apps, giving it a similar functionality to Mac OSX's dock. The rest of the icons are from a basic applets package (from left to right, from the Ubuntu logo - a main menu browser, battery options, volume controls, a calendar and clock, a CPU usage monitor, weather, mail, file browser, trash, quit/logoff, and a show desktop button. At the far right end is a little messy, I must admit - it's a notification area for all the services and announcements that would normally pop up in the top right-hand corner (or wherever your notification area normally is). All of the normal panels are removed (deleting the top panel is a bit tricky, as Ubuntu generally doesn't let you remove all of the panels). To delete it, simply open up Sessions (System > Preferences > Sessions), tab to Current Session, select gnome-panel and click remove, then tab to Session Options and save. That should ensure that the panel won't start at startup.

As for the theme, it's a mixture of elements. The window border is called T-ish-Brushed-shaded-bright-blue (bit of a mouthful, I know). You can find it on art.gnome.org (brilliant site for GNOME customisation, by the way). The window border is Metabox, and the icon set is Tangerine. The Firefox theme you see is just the default for FF3.

So that's a little look into my desktop. I find looking at screenshots of other people's (especially Linux) desktops fascinating, so this is just my little contribution.

Tim

The future of this blog, etc.

2008-06-17T17:13:00.000+10:00

Hi all.

Thinking about this blog recently, I've come to realise two important things about it that I should really say.

One - I come across as a bastard. And I'm sorry. I'm really not. Sure, I feel strongly about my beliefs and certain types of people do really frustrate me, I'm not going to lie about that. Because I'm decidedly liberal in my stance and I express that on the internet, I realise my blog can seem like an awful lot of whiny liberal propaganda. And as I'm sixteen, I know I can be seen as a naive liberal kid, who really doesn't know what he's talking about and is just trying to be progressive and free-thinking. That's really not what I blog for. I suppose I blog about these sorts of matters to vent, perhaps, or to maybe make someone with differing views think about what I have to say, if only for a split-second. And I know that a lot of the time, I'm rather intolerant of people that have different views from me (conservatives, especially). And I'm sorry. I'm really not as intolerant in real life and as I sometimes appear on this blog. I'm just trying to get my point across, and sometimes I do it maybe too well.

and two - No-one reads it. Really. I know from talking to people that I do have a few readers from random places, but I think they were most likely googling something and stumbled across this blog. I highly doubt they are any regular readers. And that's simply because I haven't tried very hard to advertise it. The most I've ever done is put a little link on various sites (Facebook, Digg, etc.). I haven't made the effort to comment on other people's blogs and I hardly ever tell any of my friends or family about this one. I've had heaps of random blogs that I've started over the years, and I don't think any of them have got past three posts, perhaps. This one I'm definitely going to keep, but if I'm going to continue to bother posting, I'm going to have to get some more readers. From now on I shall be more active in commenting on other people's blogs, and attracting more attention to this one.

Allright, that's all. Ta for reading.

Tim

No nudes please, we're a sexually conservative backwards nation.

2008-06-06T23:34:00.000+10:00

(Disclaimer: I know resorting to swearing and name-calling make me seem a little childish and encourage some people to not take this blog post seriously, but I feel it's necessary to express my frustration)

Okay, this story makes me so fucking annoyed every time I hear about it, so I had to say something.

Backstory for those of you who haven't heard it: On the 22nd of May, photographs by Australian photographer Bill Henson were seized from an upcoming exhibition by the Australian Federal Police - photographs that contained images of nude teenagers (12- and 13-year-olds, unless I'm mistaken). Child protection groups claim the photos are 'child pornography', 'disgusting', 'exploitative', etc, etc.

Google this if you want (censored) pics of some of the artworks. Anyone with half a brain can clearly see that this is not sexualising the children in any way. It's just a ridiculous and backwards notion that nudity = sex. This is one of the many things wrong with today's thinking - the reason why a young audience is allowed to see graphic violence (a horrible thing, that brings death) in a PG-13 film, while they are not allowed to see sex (a beautiful thing, that brings life). God knows how our minds ended up this warped.

Back on topic, the children clearly consented to this, and they're 12/13 years old, which, contrary to popular belief, is old enough to make your own decisions on this sort of thing. I understand it's an uncontrollable impulse for some people to be sexually aroused by these photos (I'm not making a reference to pedophilia - most adult men and definitely most teenagers would be aroused by photos of a nude 13-year-old), but that is not the only issue in this matter. The photos are artistic, and anyone who can not see the artistic merits of such photographs is clearly very closed-minded.

Every now and then, I get the uncontrollable urge to punch a particular person in the face (usually fundamentalist Christians). Joining my ever-growing list (up there with such names as Mike Huckabee, Fred Phelps, and Bill O'Reilly) is child protectionist Hetty Johnston, the woman who originally complained to the police about this exhibit. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the principle of child protection, and I do agree that they need to be protected from pedophiles and from people who want to do them harm. But this - there is no other appropriate choice of words - narrow-minded, conservative bitch seems to be stuck with the old-fashioned nudity = sex ideology. Ignoring all rational thought, she mindlessly campaigns against these photos because they contain nudity, thereby obviously rendering them bad and (I bet she's quite a heavy Christian) somehow affiliated with the devil. But I suppose unthinking propaganda can be a powerful tool. Speaking of powerful tools, our PM Kevin Rudd has gone on record saying "I find them absolutely revolting, and whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff — frankly I don't think there are any — just allow kids to be kids." (thanks, Wikipedia). What a moron. Like I said, if you can't see the artistic merit of photographs like that and can't see past the 'omg naked teenagerz' factor, you need to open your fucking mind.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Good night all!

Tim

Been in China, switched to Ubuntu, didn't blog.

2008-05-19T22:59:00.000+10:00

Well I know it's been a while since I last blogged, and I was halfway through that P!atD album review I know, but you know me, pretty indecisive and forgetful.

Yes, I've been in China. Ten students (including myself) and two teachers took a trip there from the first to the eleventh of May, and I must say, it was truly an awesome experience. We traveled to the major cities - Beijing, Xi'an, and Shanghai - and saw all the standard tourist-y sites - the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Terracotta Warriors, et al. I won't go on for too long about it, but I do want to make a special mention regarding how the general atmosphere (not literally - the actual atmosphere is smoggy and disgusting) exceeded my expectations. Living in the Western world, we tend to get the impression that China, while being a major economic power and quite civilised, is a very backwards country morally. We get the impression that it is a very controlled state that is highly policed. In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. The government is actually very lenient, and insignificant laws like we have over here don't even exist (for example, there are hardly any road rules - yet, there are hardly any accidents! The same goes for crime, which is at a much lower rate than here in Australia and a lot of other countries). In fact, it just makes me realise how policed Australia truly is. We love to think of ourselves as a very free country where our citizens have a lot of rights, but in reality we are far more policed and restricted than we know.

I could go on forever about this, but I won't. As an afterthought, I'll just mention that the best pics from China can be found on my Facebook (search me and friend me if you don't already have me as a friend).

In other news, I've switched my operating system from Windows Vista to Ubuntu, for real this time I think. Wikipedia Ubuntu if you don't know about it - it's a free Linux distribution that offers a suite of free software and a free and open-source replacement to your Windows desktop. I've installed it within Vista, technically, using a program called Wubi (Google it), that stores Ubuntu within a large file in Windows rather than on a separate hard drive partition, so there's no chance of your computer, well, fucking up. There've been a few problems with Ubuntu (getting my iPod to work, sound and Wi-Fi playing up occasionally), but I seem to have ironed those flaws out by now. And a quick Google search will solve any problem that you have, or if not, the members of the Ubuntu Forums are lovely and willing to help. Not to mention the look and feel of Ubuntu is just awesome - one of those GUIs that you can never get sick of - and it's endlessly customisable. So I reckon I've found my primary OS for a while (I've still got Windows on here too, in case I ever need to use it).

That's all I'll bore you with for now, stay cool!

Tim

Panic! at the Disco: Pretty Odd - an attempted album review

2008-04-18T22:43:00.000+10:00

I've never done one of these before. But there's a first time for everything! This is a preview of Panic!'s new album, Pretty Odd, as I listen to it for the first time. I've only ever heard snippets of one or two songs and their song Nine in the Afternoon before, so you'll get my first impressions of the song. Here goes!

1. We're So Starving - 1:21

An intro piee of sorts? A groovy little song with a pretty odd beat and various time changes. There's an interesting underlying melody to the whole thing (anyone would think I'd done a music degree), but those time changes just seem a bit too odd for me to like it just now.

2. Nine in the Afternoon - 3:12

The first piece blends seamlessly into the first single off this album, which I've already heard, and I must say I love. The verses are pretty terrible until you get to the chorus, which has a catchy tune and several random instruments in the background that seem a bit out of place in modern music, but fit well in this song. Watch out for other random sound effects in this song like a bell, for whatever reason. I must say, I don't get what this song is about, and the lyrics make no sense ("it's nine in the afternoon, your eyes are the size of the moon, you're good cause you can so you do"?) to me, but then again, I haven't sit down and listened to it much. The song ends with an interesting brassy bit, that turns orchestral right towards the end.

3. She's a Handsome Woman - 3:12

Right, the song starts with a bit of a catchy intro (with random instruments such as a little tinkly piano). I must admit that the verse is a bit catchy too, with a nice drumbeat (I play the drums, so I'm constantly listening to these things). And now into the chorus...which seems a bit of a disappointment actually, as I was expecting something a little heavier with that sort of buildup. This song is very different to modern rock songs, and a lot of Panic!'s stuff actually. The song's pretty indiscribable actually, or at least on the first listening it is.

4. Do You Know What I'm Seeing - 4:15

Starting with the sound of seagulls and running water, anyone would guess that this is a rolling and calm song. And they'd be right. The slow verse backed by what sounds like a mandolin sings about clouds or something, and the chorus is backed by what sounds like a harmonica or an accordion. Now another verse, except with more instruments in the background, and now back into the strummy bit, and the singer's back on the clouds again. Calming strings appear out of nowhere in the background. I don't have a clue what this song's about either (the chorus sings "I know it's sad that I never gave a damn about the weather, and the weather never gave a damn about me"), but it's kind of catchy. Near the end of the song, we've got the stringy mandolin-type thing, the harmonica/accordion (I'll call it a harmonaccordion for reference), and the guitars all in at once. It ends on a nice string note with the sound of chirping birds. Right.

5. That Green Gentleman [Things Have Changed] - 3:15

Fairly catchy verse that leads into a fast-talking chorus, with various guitars in the background. The song seems solid, but really lacks anything to draw me into listening to it much. The drumbeat is definitely catchy though. I'll add it to my long list of things that I should learn on the drums. But anyway, the song - it appears to be a fairly upbeat and optimistic song with a fast tempo that alternates between the slow singing for the verses and more fast-talking choruses. Also, I fail to realise what the title's got to do with anything, but I've never understood that with any of Panic!'s songs.

6. I Have Friends in Holy Spaces - 1:56

It starts with a sound like an ancient crackling, and then what sounds like a male voice over a ukelele, but with a 1950s radio distortion on it. Jazz-like brass instruments creep (or rather, leap blindly) into the song, all the while this is while the song sounds like something from sixty years ago. A nice gimmick though. I must admit that it's a catchy song.

I'll admit that I took a break there to watch Jay Leno, and now it's getting pretty late and I'm actually quite tired, so I'll finish this tomorrow.

I should've thought of the loss to my civil liberties BEFORE I went and was born less than eighteen years ago!

2008-04-18T22:12:00.000+10:00

My computer lags horribly. I'm trying to sync my iPod, download an album, convert a video file to an iPod-ready form and browse the web at the same time. Why, oh why didn't they make computers that can do four separate things at once? Ah well. And I know I haven't updated this blog for quite a while. But every now and then, I'll get the urge to rant.

Today at school (I'm in year 10 at a small private secular, hopefully fairly liberal-minded school), I was interrupted from having to help teach the infant class drama (a tedious task) by the principal having to see me for a second. I made my way downstairs to where the principal interrupted his class to have a chat to me. In his hand he held a typed list. On closer inspection, I discovered that the list contained details for every person who had accessed their email account on a school computer in the past month - complete with the date they had logged on and their password. That's right, their password, right there. Turns out that I wasn't in trouble, and I just had to confirm that the individual entry about a week ago was indeed me (given that my email address is my full name, I fail to see who else it would be), and if I had a legitimate reason for accessing my emails (I did - I'd simply emailed a document to myself to print at school in lieu of a printer at home at the time). What is irritating me is the degree of keylogging that takes place. After accessing my secure emails at school, after I had permission, I don't really feel much like forfeiting my password (which is of course a secure thing and can only be found with software the school uses called KGB Keylogger - way to go, software makers, a great parallel to draw there - that surely is only there to protect children in the case of 'omgzzz pedophiles on the interwebs'). I don't really have an issue with the fact that they knew I accessed my emails - surely it's their job to check the websites visited on the school computers and make sure there's no child porn being accessed, or whatever the conservatives seem to be paranoid about at the moment - but once they realised that I was on an email site - something you can tell by the website URL, the fact that I entered an email address and password and then went on to open an email - surely there is no need to then print out my email address and password for the world to see (along with several other peoples', I might add), and then question me about it? I haven't been looking at porn or instructions on how to blow up Parliament House. Leave it at that. Your responsibilities as educators are to make sure I don't look at inappropriate stuff, not to question me about the appropriate stuff.

Regardless, I didn't bother to change my email password - I don't personally care who reads my emails and there's nothing really private in there anyway. But when I use a school computer (with permission) to further a school project, I don't give permission for my email and password to go public, just like I don't when I sit here and check my email at home.

I can't wait to be eighteen. Man, we need to give underage people some rights. I applied for a passport the other day (I'm going to China for two weeks, on a happier note!) and although I filled in the form, it occured to me that any of my parents could have filled in the entire form and that they were the ones who give the legal permission, and that technically I could have nothing to do with the whole application process and still get a passport that I didn't want. It's not my fault that our government (and every other government in the world) treats people under eighteen, or twenty-one, or whatever the legal age is as morons until they reach that age. It's my hope than in fifty or so years, we'll look back on our treatment of kids now as wrong as our previous treatment of women, blacks, or gays in the past. And no, I'm not just some naive kid whining about these things, I actually know what I'm talking about.

I wants me some rights, goshdarnit! [/1890s prospector]

And now Muriel's Wedding's just come on, so my anger knows no bounds.

Well, that was a rather super Tuesday.

2008-02-06T23:11:00.000+11:00

Or Wednesday, as I should say. Waking up on Wednesday morning and logging onto CNN and the NY Times sites, I set about to catch as much of the Super Tuesday proceedings as I could. As an Obama supporter, I'd have to say that I'm quite satisfied with how the day went.

Let's look at the Republican side first. Along with most of the Internet tipsters and political anylists, I'd already guessed that McCain would get the Republican nomination. And I wasn't surprised when the day's results rolled in. I'd have to say that either McCain or Romney would definitely be my preferred GOP candidate (apart from Paul, but let's be realistic, eh?). Huckabee did better than I thought, but I'm glad that he's nowhere near McCain in terms of delegates (and let's face it - who wants Huckabee anywhere in, near, or within a thousand-mile radius of the White House?). Romney's poor performance surprised me, and that's a shame - I was looking forward to a good race between who I deem the two most worthy GOP candidates. But it allows both me and the media to focus our energy on the Democratic nomination.

Obama's poor performances in Massachusetts and California disappointed me, but apart from that I couldn't be happier with his performance on the day. Picking up some big states like Illinois (but who didn't pick that one - hell, the NY Times had called it before the polls had even closed), Barack certainly seems like a force to be reckoned with, but he'll have some work to do if he wants to beat Clinton. Unfortunately, it's looking very good for Clinton. Picking up California (I missed the California count, because I had to be out - damn that state for being on the east coast and having their polls close later than everywhere else!) was definitely a boon for the Clinton camp that has both lifted the spirits of Hillary-ites everywhere and dampened the spirits of Obama-ites. Same with Massachusetts - probably one of the only real big upsets of Super Tuesday (considering we had no idea about some states like California beforehand, and most of the other states went as we thought they would).

But even if Hillary does win, I'd definitely look forward to an exciting race between her and McCain. Same with Obama and McCain - and in that case, there'd definitely be someone in the running who I'd actually want to win.

Peace guys.

Tim

16GB iPhone and 32GB iTouch available (US$499 each). Post includes some random Apple musings.

2008-02-06T02:29:00.001+11:00

Well that's always good to hear. This seems like a good business move by Apple. Not that it worries me, really. I have a 16GB Touch, and it serves me well (I only have just over two and a half gigabytes of music, and no videos on my iPod as I don't see the need). But I imagine these new versions (especially the 32GB Touch) will be very handy for those with large music collections and iPods full of movies, music videos, TV shows, and vodcasts (God forbid, I'm starting to sound like an Apple ad!). However, I definitely won't be upgrading. I'm happy with my 16GB model, and finding the money to upgrade even if I wanted to would definitely be difficult for a poor student like me (I think this is where I insert a link to my Paypal). Surprisingly, even though I'm a huge Apple supporter and I follow all of their product releases very closely, my iPod is actually the only Apple product that I own. My laptop runs Windows, although I've skinned it to look like a Mac, so I get the nice look-and-feel of Mac OSX without having to bother upgrading! (I would upload a screenshot were it not for my dialup dilemma mentioned a couple of posts ago).

The iPhone still isn't out in Australia yet. There are rumours that Apple's provider of choice for down here will be Optus. Now that surprises me. Optus definitely aren't the biggest competitor as far as mobile coverage and Internet plans go. I would have definitely expected Apple to go with either Telstra or Vodafone, the two biggest providers here. Telstra would probably be the best option, as it's bound to have the biggest share of the market here. However, choosing a lesser company like Vodafone, or even Optus could definitely attract the iPhone user base - those Australians who desperately want an iPhone and are willing to change to a different provider just to get one.

Finally, a note on the MacBook Air. If you don't know about it, it's Apple's ultra thin laptop that's only 0.76" (damn imperial system) thin at its thickest point. I'm thinking of buying one, when I have a fairly well-paying job and a bit of money (this laptop is technically my mother's - sad, I know, but good luck trying to find finances to buy things for yourself when you're trying to complete high school and find a job outside of McDonalds). Yes, the Air's lack of an optical drive and multiple USB ports worries me (the lack of Ethernet functionally, not as much so - I always use Wi-Fi, anyway), but I'm sure I could find a way around that. I really want a light, functional laptop that can travel with me but still be good for using around the house. Perhaps the Air is what I'm looking for.

The price worries me though. US$1,799 translates as AU$2,042, but it's being sold here for AU$2,499 (although eBay may be a cheaper option for this sort of thing - besides, they can send it in a manila envelope!). This laptop cost around AU$1,600, and it's got an optical drive and 3 more USB ports than the Air (not to mention a probably longer-lasting battery and faster processor). But I don't know. Apple products are just so damn shiny.

And it's nearly 3 in the morning, so I should really go to bed.

Happy dreaming about shiny Apple products,

Tim

Super Tuesday is finally upon us!

2008-02-06T01:06:00.000+11:00

Now I'm not American, but I take a great interest in American politics. Maybe because the politics in our country (Australia) are so boring! But whatever the reason is, the 2008 presidential elections have fascinated me. And on the eve of Super Tuesday (well, it's just after 9 AM in New York as I type this, so the polls will be just opening on the west coast), it looks like a tight race for the presidential nominations. Here's my thoughts.

As for the Democrat nomination between Obama and Clinton, I'd have to say I'm an Obama supporter. For two rather simple reasons - one - Obama seems to be the change that America sorely needs, to free it of its centuries-old conservative mindset, and two - Hillary Clinton is just a bitch.

The only two major problems that I see with Obama are these - he supports the PATRIOT Act, and he is a supporter of the Real ID card. The PATRIOT Act is an abomination and needs to be thrown out the window as soon as is physically possible (although it doesn't seem like that will be any time soon, unfortunately). It deprives the citizens of the US basic civil liberties, outlined in the Constitution, such as the right to not have one's home searched without a warrant, and the right to not have one's phone or Internet activity accessed without due cause (oh and by the way, my views on this are influenced as I see myself as a 9/11 conspiracy theorist - i.e., it was an inside job. Don't think I'm a nutter now just because of that). Same with Real ID. If Obama just leant a little bit more to the libertarian side, I think we'd have a near perfect candidate on our hands.

Another two small problems with Obama - for such a liberal guy, he doesn't support same-sex marriage. None of the major candidates do (well, Hillary and Obama don't, and all of the Republican candidates definitely don't) which is quite disappointing. It seems almost unfathomable to me that in the 21st century, such a basic right for LGBT couples is denied by law. He does support civil unions though, so I suppose that that's a bit of consolation (I'm neither gay nor an American, so I don't see how it's relevant to me, but I like to be nosy about this sort of thing anyway). The last problem that I can think of is that he is Christian. Now yes, when I do think of American Christians, I do think of complete nutters like Mike Huckabee, and I know that most of you aren't like that. But I just think - and this is a controversial view here - that someone who believes in something as obviously flawed as Christianity should not be running the country.

But Obama's the best hope we've got at the moment.

As for Clinton, no chance of her getting my vote (well, my hypothetical vote - I'm both too young and in the wrong country to really have a say). Her and Bill's dirty campaign tactics, coupled with her ridiculous views and conservative nature (for a Democrat, at least), definitely make me shy away from voting for her. In fact, if the race came down to Clinton and a reasonable Republican (McCain or Romney - or Paul, but that ain't gonna happen), I think the Republican would have to get my vote. And that's a big step for me, voting Republican. It's something that I'd never even consider doing otherwise.

Unless Ron Paul got the nomination.

Now listen to me before I say anything more about this - yes, I know that won't happen. I don't like to come off as one of those people on Digg who won't shut up about him. He just really seems like the best of the Republican candidates - maybe even the best out of all of the candidates - to me. His views are strongly libertarian, favouring the view that the government should just keep their nose out of people's business, so to speak. And he's an extremely experienced candidate, having served several years as a doctor, in the army, and in the House of Reps.

That ain't gonna happen though (well not any time soon, and I don't see how he can stick around for that long, considering he's 73 years old this year). It's looking more and more likely that the Republican nomination will go to John McCain. And I don't really mind that. He doesn't seem that bad. And I think that Obama, if he gets the nomination, could fare pretty well against McCain. In second place is Mitt Romney. I'll admit I don't know too much about his or McCain's views, but I'd tolerate it if either of them got the nomination. As long as Mike Huckabee doesn't. Huckabee is a moron of the highest class - an ignorant Southern Baptist minister who wants to change the Constitution to the 'word of God' and doesn't even believe in evolution. Evolution is a scientific fact, and if you don't believe in it, then you are wrong. For crying out loud. We need the separation of church and state, and I kind of thought that we'd been doing allright at it until now. After two thousand years, don't you think this belief would have died off. Again, I'm sorry for any Christians who might get offended by reading this. It's just that morons like Mike Huckabee really make you look bad, and that's a fact. Like evolution.

So. Here's how I'd vote for the following results:
Clinton vs McCain - I'd have to vote for McCain. Anything to stop Hillary getting into the White House.
Obama vs McCain - Obama all the way! He's not perfect, but he's the best hope that America's got.
Clinton vs Romney - Romney, see above.
Obama vs Romney - Obama, see above.

(and for fun):

Clinton vs Paul - Paul.
Obama vs Paul - Oh my god. For starters, I'd be very happy if this were the case. But if I had to choose, I think I'd just explode. There. Case closed.

But whatever the outcome, Super Tuesday should be a hell of a lot of fun.

Tim

Watching a slowed-down video of a snail racing a tortoise would be faster than dialup speed.

2008-02-06T00:48:00.000+11:00

"Do you remember the Internet at this speed? Up all night and you'd see eight women."

- Roy, The IT Crowd

I need to rant. As I sit in bed typing this on my reliable old laptop, the series of tubes that we know as the Internet are being transmitted to me at a ridiculously slow speed. That's right, ladies and gents, we're talking dialup speed.

At the start of the month, I was getting a little fed up with my 12GB a month plan that Telstra BigPond provide. So I thought, hey, why not, upgrade to the 25GB a month plan, it's only $10 more. So I did. For the rest of the month, I enjoyed my 25GB, watching the usage meter on the Bigpond site ever so closely to make sure that I didn't exceed my limit. And I didn't. But one fateful morning (I would remember the date for dramatic effect, but I can't), I woke up to find my Internet speed shaped to dialup speed, as if I had exceeded the limit. No, I thought to myself (I'm a man of few words in the morning), as I checked the website. Sixteen minutes later (I exaggerate the slowness, but still, it is ridiculously...slow), I arrive at the Bigpond site to see, sure enough, that I had apparently only used 86% of my downloads. A phone call to Telstra later and I realise that I actually had a download limit lower than what I signed up for (only for the first month, something to do with changing plans in the middle of the month). But the meter on the site failed to tell me! The man on the phone allocated me two more gigabytes (how very decent of him!), but at this point, I still had a week left of the month, and 2GB doesn't tend to last me a week (I remember when I had to live on 2GB for a whole month! Now that was appalling). So for the last two days before the download limit resets, I'm at dialup speed.

While this single isolated incident with Telstra wouldn't exactly be enough to tarnish my view of them, I have had many similar incidents in the past. I won't begin to go into the process of buying my mobile, early last year (but in a nutshell: they sold me a faulty phone - some weird problem where it would turn itself off when tapped on the side - and wouldn't fix it themselves. After taking it to the Nokia Care Centre, they gave it back to me saying it was fine. And sure enough, it wasn't. It took a couple of weeks of pestering to get them to replace it for me). And weird additions and plan changes have been made to my phone and internet plans when I didn't authorise them. Damn Telstra.

Of course, I can't exactly change to a different provider now because a) there's not exactly many other providers to choose from in Tassie, and b) I'd probably have to pay Telstra's contract out anyway!

Enjoy your broadband, high-resolution pics and streaming video.

Signing off spitefully,

Tim

(P.S. - I should note that I'm really not as annoyed at this as I make out. It's just a minor inconvenience really. Still, that wouldn't make for a good read, would it?)

An introduction, of sorts.

2008-02-06T00:37:00.000+11:00

"The thing about first impressions on a blog, is that you only get to make one, and people will repeatedly read it."

- Me (hey, it's cool to start with a quote, even if it's just something you just said in inverted commas)

Welcome one and all (most likely the former). So I finally thought I'd set up a serious blog. One for all sorts of things, such as my political musings (read: rantings), reviews of things, and the like. A blog that people in ten years will look back on and think "Wow! The 2000s were certainly a boring decade". Or maybe not. But either way, I hope that a lot of you find this blog informative and a good read. I know I'll certainly find it a good...type.

I'm off before I embarrass myself any further!

Tim