Hey, you're always asking me where I find stuff...
Monday, October 31, 2005
Little Link List 7.0
Phones are changing our lives in interesting ways;
Harvey Birdman - Sebben & Sebben Employee Orientation;
Ritter and Hersh talk about Iraq - turns out everyone lied.
Harvey Birdman - Sebben & Sebben Employee Orientation;
Ritter and Hersh talk about Iraq - turns out everyone lied.
Friday, October 28, 2005
I like the PSP
I like the PSP because it seems to be pretty easy to make your own content for it, even without cracking the copy-protection. Here's two examples - a comic designed to be viewed on the PSP (see photo below) and a music video for Zulya and the Children of the Underground. This is the sort of thing that makes the PSP a much more useful and versatile mobile device.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Google base updated
In response to my post about Googlebase, Pat left a comment and asked "What are the features a small business wants on a database?"
Well, in my opinon a simple way to create a catalogue of products or services would be the number #1 small business need. I don't know if you could use Googlebase to do more complex stuff like fulfillment or transactions (but surely Google and other providers have that in their sites).
But I do know that on tradingpost.com.au there are traders who take out three pages of ads, effectively creating their own electronic catalogue.
In addition to making a simple, hosted electronic catalogue, it's completely indexed by Google - so as long as you use the correct words to describe each product, and include pricing for each (for comparison purposes), you should be confident that your catalogue will be found by people with intent to buy.
(Quick thought - you would probably want to create a parallel catalogue with mispelled product names so you catch those people who mis-spell their search terms.)
Well, in my opinon a simple way to create a catalogue of products or services would be the number #1 small business need. I don't know if you could use Googlebase to do more complex stuff like fulfillment or transactions (but surely Google and other providers have that in their sites).
But I do know that on tradingpost.com.au there are traders who take out three pages of ads, effectively creating their own electronic catalogue.
In addition to making a simple, hosted electronic catalogue, it's completely indexed by Google - so as long as you use the correct words to describe each product, and include pricing for each (for comparison purposes), you should be confident that your catalogue will be found by people with intent to buy.
(Quick thought - you would probably want to create a parallel catalogue with mispelled product names so you catch those people who mis-spell their search terms.)
Little Link List #0006
Nazis - Simon Masnick writes about Nazi fashion in East Asia;
Trains - Sushi Das writes about the failed privatisation of public transport in Melbourne;
Spam - fake viagra, fake Rogaine, fake bird-flu drugs.
Trains - Sushi Das writes about the failed privatisation of public transport in Melbourne;
Spam - fake viagra, fake Rogaine, fake bird-flu drugs.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Google takes aim at hosting services
Over on ArsTechnica there's an article describing the imminent launch of 'Google Base', which will essentially be database services for content developers/providers/anyone. This was quoted in the article:
What Google is doing is saying "You don't need to stuff around with setting up a webserver, getting a hosting deal and designing a database-backed website. We'll do it for you."
SERVICES!
I think I can hear the bottom dropping out of the hosting market...
Google Base is Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free.
Examples of items you can find in Google Base:
• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures
What Google is doing is saying "You don't need to stuff around with setting up a webserver, getting a hosting deal and designing a database-backed website. We'll do it for you."
SERVICES!
I think I can hear the bottom dropping out of the hosting market...
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Future Predictions
I've been thinking a lot lately about what the future might be like - not so much about whether we'll use jetpacks to get to work every day, or if there'll be a functioning moonbase, but more general things about how we'll all live as a society.
At the moment we're able (if we choose) to live a very extended lifestyle. We can live 40km from our job and think nothing of travelling that far every day to get to it. We can choose to live in houses with no space for growing plants. We can eat anything we want, whenever we want. We can even eat deap-sea fish that takes 100 years to mature. We can travel to every part of the globe and we do so on a regular basis.
Right now petrol is expensive. And it doesn't look like it will get any cheaper. What's more likely is that petrol will continue to get more expensive. So that means just about everything else will get more expensive.
Food. Clothes. Housing. Air travel. Everything.
If we have to spend more money on the things we currently buy, then we'll have less to spend, so we'll have to stop buying some of those things. I'm thinking that in the future we will all (well, nearly all) be poorer. I don't know how poor we'll be, but definitely poorer. Maybe even 1940's poorer. For example, at the moment we can eat chicken every day. Chicken is a cheap meat. Chickens are raised in massive industrial coops in their millions, slaughtered in huge processing-plants, sliced up and packed and sent off in streams of semitrailers to supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food joints, butchers etc. Chicken is cheap. (And tasty.)
But chicken wasn't always cheap. In the 40's (and even into the 50's) chicken was something that most people only got to eat occasionally. Maybe a couple of times a year. If you kept chickens in your backyard you could have it more often, but you could only have chicken as fast as you could raise them. If there's no fuel, trucks won't be able to minimise the cost of moving large amounts of chicken meat from the processing plants to the cities.
Prediction #1 - we will eat less chicken. The chicken we do eat will often come from the coop in our backyard. It will be tastier, and we will start eating the weird parts of chicken again (e.g. livers, hearts and feet).
Of course to raise chickens, you need room. Houses in the city with backyards will be very desirable because we're all going to have to grow vegies again. The inner-city houses (with little or no backyards) will once again be leased out to poorer people, who will provide the labour for all those industries that will move back towards the city centres so as to minimise transportation costs. Multi-national corporations will find it hard to survive and will inevitably split up into smaller companies that service highly-localised markets.
Prediction #2 - our experience of the last four decades of companies getting more and more massive will change completely. Companies will splinter, new local brands will arise, regionalism will overtake globalisation.
Prediction #3 - we will start learning to do things for ourselves again. There are a lot of things you can grow and make that don't require a huge amount of skill. Making your own beer is a good example.
Prediction #4 - we will get thinner. The reason we're all so fat is because we can buy energy very very cheaply. Sugar is cheap, oil is cheap. That energy will be more expensive, and we'll have less opportunities to buy it.
Well, that's only a few. I'm sure you get the idea...
At the moment we're able (if we choose) to live a very extended lifestyle. We can live 40km from our job and think nothing of travelling that far every day to get to it. We can choose to live in houses with no space for growing plants. We can eat anything we want, whenever we want. We can even eat deap-sea fish that takes 100 years to mature. We can travel to every part of the globe and we do so on a regular basis.
Right now petrol is expensive. And it doesn't look like it will get any cheaper. What's more likely is that petrol will continue to get more expensive. So that means just about everything else will get more expensive.
Food. Clothes. Housing. Air travel. Everything.
If we have to spend more money on the things we currently buy, then we'll have less to spend, so we'll have to stop buying some of those things. I'm thinking that in the future we will all (well, nearly all) be poorer. I don't know how poor we'll be, but definitely poorer. Maybe even 1940's poorer. For example, at the moment we can eat chicken every day. Chicken is a cheap meat. Chickens are raised in massive industrial coops in their millions, slaughtered in huge processing-plants, sliced up and packed and sent off in streams of semitrailers to supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food joints, butchers etc. Chicken is cheap. (And tasty.)
But chicken wasn't always cheap. In the 40's (and even into the 50's) chicken was something that most people only got to eat occasionally. Maybe a couple of times a year. If you kept chickens in your backyard you could have it more often, but you could only have chicken as fast as you could raise them. If there's no fuel, trucks won't be able to minimise the cost of moving large amounts of chicken meat from the processing plants to the cities.
Prediction #1 - we will eat less chicken. The chicken we do eat will often come from the coop in our backyard. It will be tastier, and we will start eating the weird parts of chicken again (e.g. livers, hearts and feet).
Of course to raise chickens, you need room. Houses in the city with backyards will be very desirable because we're all going to have to grow vegies again. The inner-city houses (with little or no backyards) will once again be leased out to poorer people, who will provide the labour for all those industries that will move back towards the city centres so as to minimise transportation costs. Multi-national corporations will find it hard to survive and will inevitably split up into smaller companies that service highly-localised markets.
Prediction #2 - our experience of the last four decades of companies getting more and more massive will change completely. Companies will splinter, new local brands will arise, regionalism will overtake globalisation.
Prediction #3 - we will start learning to do things for ourselves again. There are a lot of things you can grow and make that don't require a huge amount of skill. Making your own beer is a good example.
Prediction #4 - we will get thinner. The reason we're all so fat is because we can buy energy very very cheaply. Sugar is cheap, oil is cheap. That energy will be more expensive, and we'll have less opportunities to buy it.
Well, that's only a few. I'm sure you get the idea...
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Telly on my phone!
I'm trying out a 3G phone for work. Fortunately for work all the Telstra Active content is free for 2 months, as it's quite expensive. For example a one minute news clip costs about one dollar. And I've been trying out as much content as possible.
So here's my 3G thoughts:
1) Video news is actually not a bad idea - but it feels like one minute isn't long enough and ten minutes is too long. I think a five minute broadcast would be about right.
2) If you're delivering expensive data via phone, it better be right up to date. I just watched an ABC TV item about how Craig Lowndes was feeling confident about winning the Bathurst 1000. He didn't win. Thanks ABC.
3) I'm interested to see how the video phone capability will go. I was sceptical about video on mobiles before, but this is starting to make me change my mind.
4) It all needs to be a lot cheaper. There's no way I'd pay for all this data at these prices.
5) A lot of the content available via Telstra Active didn't actually work - something wrong with the various providers' servers. That's frustrating - where's the quality control?
6) The content needs to be more flexible - I want to choose streams from all over the world and grab it via bookmarks. So all the media companies need to work harder. Or the rest of the world will do it themselves.
Actually, I hope the rest of the world does start making content for mobiles - it's bound to be more interesting than Murdoch's junk.
So here's my 3G thoughts:
1) Video news is actually not a bad idea - but it feels like one minute isn't long enough and ten minutes is too long. I think a five minute broadcast would be about right.
2) If you're delivering expensive data via phone, it better be right up to date. I just watched an ABC TV item about how Craig Lowndes was feeling confident about winning the Bathurst 1000. He didn't win. Thanks ABC.
3) I'm interested to see how the video phone capability will go. I was sceptical about video on mobiles before, but this is starting to make me change my mind.
4) It all needs to be a lot cheaper. There's no way I'd pay for all this data at these prices.
5) A lot of the content available via Telstra Active didn't actually work - something wrong with the various providers' servers. That's frustrating - where's the quality control?
6) The content needs to be more flexible - I want to choose streams from all over the world and grab it via bookmarks. So all the media companies need to work harder. Or the rest of the world will do it themselves.
Actually, I hope the rest of the world does start making content for mobiles - it's bound to be more interesting than Murdoch's junk.
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Privacy & Terror Update
I posted a while ago about the proposed new anti-terror legislation, and Simon asked why we hadn't seen anywhere what the proposed legislation was. It turns out the reason was because the Federal Government hadn't actually released the proposed legislation to the public yet. Luckily Jon Stanhope, the Chief Minister of the ACT, has released a draft of the proposed legislation on his website.
So now we can take the time to read it and find out what freedoms we're losing.
So now we can take the time to read it and find out what freedoms we're losing.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The Tai Shi Village Elections
China is much more complex than we ever hear about from the Western media. If you have the time read this excellent account of village elections in China. It's an amazing story of grassroots activism, violence, and corruption.
Internet Bubble
The second internet bubble is well underway, and like any bubble it needs a catchphrase. This time around it's called Web 2.0 - as in the second generation of the web - better, faster, more useful. And like every bubble, a lot of junk will rise to the top. So it's nice to see that someone is keeping some perspective.
Interstitial
Interstitial is the space between night and morning - the cold, clear hour when the light is still low and the roads are still quiet.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Why I Play Indoor Soccer
Ten seasons. Ten. Ten seasons of playing indoor soccer, every Tuesday night, almost every week of the year. Ten seasons doesn't mean ten years though - each season is a maximum of 17 weeks, so it works out to about 3 seasons a year. Which means I've been playing for three and a bit years. It never ends, it never ends.
The funny thing is I haven't gotten tired of it. Nor have the rest of the players in the team. It seems like we've all just accepted that for the time being indoor soccer will be a regular part of our lives. I imagine this may change as we all start to become fathers (yes, only blokes on the team).
I have started to think about why I play though - trying to understand what enjoyment I get from it.
At the most basic level I enjoy the physical activity. When you're a child you run all the time. At school, at home, with friends, in class, during recess and lunch. There's all this excess energy and you just have to burn it off. Then of course in high school you only run in Phys. Ed. class - running isn't cool anymore. But you still run.
But then (unless you play a sport or you've picked up the habit of regular exercise) you stop running. There just isn't a place for it in your life anymore. You can't run at work, you drive everywhere. And even if you exercise regularly, you probably don't ever reach that speed - the flat-out run-as-fast-as-you-can speed that small children hit every day. Even people who are running to catch the tram or bus won't hit top speed for fear of looking ridiculous.
So indoor soccer is the only time I get to run flat-out. When the other team is attacking and the man with the ball has run past you have to turn and run as hard as you can to catch him before he shoots for goal. And when you get there your momentum might be such that the only thing you can do is mow him down.
Which brings me to the other less pleasant reason why I play. I get quite a buzz when I've charged across the court to intercept a player with the ball who's running down the wing and ended up smacking the ball out of play and sending the player crashing to the floor. There's something incredibly exhilarating in hard physical contact. I don't mean punching someone, but two people contesting possession of the ball, and in the contest crashing into each other. By the way this is illegal in all forms of soccer - it's not supposed to be a physical contact game. And if the player you are contesting against isn't expecting physical contact they can get quite irate.
(The trick there is to make sure you actually get your foot to the ball so that the ref can't possibly give a foul against you, and that inevitably means the player will get turn their anger to the ref.)
Of course the best part of the game is scoring a goal, which is something I tend not to do.
Running hard, hitting people, scoring goals. I think that sums it all up really - there are a whole lot of other reasons why I enjoy it, but they're all related to these three.
The funny thing is I haven't gotten tired of it. Nor have the rest of the players in the team. It seems like we've all just accepted that for the time being indoor soccer will be a regular part of our lives. I imagine this may change as we all start to become fathers (yes, only blokes on the team).
I have started to think about why I play though - trying to understand what enjoyment I get from it.
At the most basic level I enjoy the physical activity. When you're a child you run all the time. At school, at home, with friends, in class, during recess and lunch. There's all this excess energy and you just have to burn it off. Then of course in high school you only run in Phys. Ed. class - running isn't cool anymore. But you still run.
But then (unless you play a sport or you've picked up the habit of regular exercise) you stop running. There just isn't a place for it in your life anymore. You can't run at work, you drive everywhere. And even if you exercise regularly, you probably don't ever reach that speed - the flat-out run-as-fast-as-you-can speed that small children hit every day. Even people who are running to catch the tram or bus won't hit top speed for fear of looking ridiculous.
So indoor soccer is the only time I get to run flat-out. When the other team is attacking and the man with the ball has run past you have to turn and run as hard as you can to catch him before he shoots for goal. And when you get there your momentum might be such that the only thing you can do is mow him down.
Which brings me to the other less pleasant reason why I play. I get quite a buzz when I've charged across the court to intercept a player with the ball who's running down the wing and ended up smacking the ball out of play and sending the player crashing to the floor. There's something incredibly exhilarating in hard physical contact. I don't mean punching someone, but two people contesting possession of the ball, and in the contest crashing into each other. By the way this is illegal in all forms of soccer - it's not supposed to be a physical contact game. And if the player you are contesting against isn't expecting physical contact they can get quite irate.
(The trick there is to make sure you actually get your foot to the ball so that the ref can't possibly give a foul against you, and that inevitably means the player will get turn their anger to the ref.)
Of course the best part of the game is scoring a goal, which is something I tend not to do.
Running hard, hitting people, scoring goals. I think that sums it all up really - there are a whole lot of other reasons why I enjoy it, but they're all related to these three.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Little Link List #5
Hiroshige was a printmaker in Edo period Japan - now you can look at a full gallery of his work;
And if you like Hiroshige, it would be worth your while reading about Hokusai.
And if you like Hiroshige, it would be worth your while reading about Hokusai.
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