A Photo A Day…

This site http://www.c71123.com/daily_photo/ has been doing the rounds a bit lately. A guy has taken a photo of himself every day for 4 years. But hmm, at the end of it, its sort of interesting but sort of uninteresting.
–Pete

Yes, you can see row upon multitudinous row of photos of this guy in his narcissistic glory. I think it’d be interesting to turn it into a timelapse video (similar to the videos they shot of the changes in a pregnant woman over nine months) and watch him age through the years… but that’d take… years. Instead, we now get to see his entire wardrobe instead, plus the varying degrees of his hair’s unkemptness through the weeks. Thanks Pete!

  2:28am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Miscellaneous  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Vanilla Coke

Emily dropped around last week with a delivery of Vanilla Coke after having spied a vending machine stocking it at the hospital she’s interning at. The initial hit, as I took my first swig, of the new taste was impressive. The smooth aromatic vapour of vanilla essence wafts through the mouth, followed by the familiar tang of the carbonated black stuff. There is no aftertaste of vanilla. Quite delicious, but the problem lies in that it’s diminishing returns from there. The hint of vanilla fades with each subsequent sip, and it begins to taste like plain Coke after that. To regain the taste of vanilla, you have to take a break from drinking to let your taste buds reset. Perhaps a little too subtle for the common palate (bonus points if you can tell me which childhood book that line is from), it’s a nice change from regular Coke, but nothing to get excited about. However, I currently do prefer it to classic Coke, because it offers that little bit extra at the start.

  2:23am (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Food  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Degrees of Separation

Based on some empirical evidence gathered over the years…

Hypothesis: Without myself having gone to any weblog meetups, I’d say that the great majority of Sydney webloggers would be consciously three degrees of separation away from me, or within three degrees. (I’m defining a single degree of separation as having spoken to someone in real life, and with both people having stored each other’s name and face somewhere in their memory. By “consciously”, I mean that we can work paths of separation out. There are a lot of people who are unknowingly closer in separation than they are aware.)

Perhaps someone will eventually make up a diagram of the Sydney blog community’s “interconnectedness”. Any bloggers care to test out this hypothesis with me? :)

Hypothesis 2: Degrees of separation become largely irrelevant beyond three degrees. Chances are you don’t know the person at all.

  5:36pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  E/N  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

I think I’ve discovered where the “Mod Oz” or “Fusion” styles of cooking came about, after this little scene in the kitchen:

Dave laid out mince to defrost this morning with the intention of cooking up a three day supply of spaghetti tonight.

Dave (opening fridge): Oh no! The tofu is going to expire soon… on the 30th. What day is it today?
Me: The 28th.
Dave: Shit, I must cook it tomorrow… (pauses) How the hell do you cook tofu with spaghetti bolognaise? That’s just wrong.

  2:35pm (GMT +11.00) tomorrow  •  Food  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Urk

I am currently going through a bit of honours thesis hell. After discovering that the original plan of testing my software in a real world business wasn’t going to happen due to the low adoption in Sydney of the e-commerce system that my software runs on, my supervisor suggested a scope change to running a case study instead. So, I spent the last fortnight preparing for a case study that was meant to be done on fraud in the RTA. Unfortunately, the approval hadn’t actually been passed for me to run interviews, and last Thursday, I got a call from my supervisor to say that RTA management had turned down the request. Rumour has it that they are having a bit of trouble with internal system security, which means that they aren’t exactly in the mood to have some inquisitive uni student come in and tell them all the things they are doing wrong. Strike 2. Upon further discussion, it was decided that I would be running a survey instead. So, throw out the last two weeks worth of work, or about 4000 words of well researched material (if I do say so myself), and restart. The thesis is due on November 15. The process of Packing Shit has not started just yet, but I guarantee that within a week or two, I will definitely be packing it.

In other news, daylight saving starts. Therefore, we all lose an hour of sleep tonight, meaning I will be extra tired at dragonboat tomorrow morning. Tuesday night I’ll be going out to dinner with the world trip crew. Out of the other three, I haven’t seen Von in a very long time, so it will be good to catch up with her. We’re going to a Nepalese restaurant in Surry Hills, and then Gelatissimo in the CBD, which everyone tells me is the latest popular ice cream joint. (I’m inclined to believe this because they pave their ice cream into cones. Real ice cream is paved, not scooped!) Those choices were naturally made in line with the two most favourite countries we visited a couple years ago. Ok then, back to the stressful grind of the thesis.

One more thing. Soon mailed me with an amusing conspiracy theory about the Millennium trains. They sure are rare.

  11:20pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

Amalgamated Post

– Interesting, amusing read about a hooker scam.
– Deep Fritz draws final chess match with Kramnik.
– Google Labs, innovations under development.
– Windows Longhorn screenshots. Most people think they’re fake, as you can see by the comments underneath.
– Another man kicks the bucket after playing too many computer games.
– Gallery of cars from The Fast and The Furious 2, in production. {src: LJ}
– Analysis of Sarah Kerrigan as a role model for women. Hmm. Yeah, you can find anything on the net.

  5:36pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Miscellaneous  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Muscle Info

Some interesting information on muscle growth. Typically muscle bulk is built on by the muscle fibres expanding (hypertrophy), but in some occassions, new ones can be grown (hyperplasia). Also, eccentric contractions seem to build muscle the best.

  5:41pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Sports  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Do The Dew

I don’t think they ever ran those Mountain Dew ad campaigns here, but anyway, these Dew can shotguns are pretty cool. And very illegal too in Oz, I’d imagine.

  5:38pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Miscellaneous  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Trivia

How many copies does a record have to sell to go gold? Platinum? What about diamond? Find out.

Ahhhh, but how many sales do you need for gold/platinum in Australia?
(A: 35,000/70,000 respectively).
– Zero

  1:40am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Miscellaneous  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Thesis News

It’s just rolled over into the one month left stage, until my thesis is due. The workload is mounting and I have yet to commence a case study I need to do for it (not that I’ve been lazy, my supervisor discovered that a sudden change in thesis objectives was necessary last week). I’ve been staring at Word for so long over the past fortnight that I’ve taken to pacing about the apartment just to get away from it. Thus, I present to you a flash game worthy of my current state of mind: Poke the Penguin. Thanks Dan.

  7:44pm (GMT +10.00)  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Bali Bombing

What’s there to say, really? Except that news of it has already dropped off the front page of CNN.com. Horrible. For Aussies, not quite as bad as an act of terrorism occurring on our own soil, but about the closest you can get to it.

  5:39pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Current Affairs  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Road to Perdition

Road to Perdition is a slow moving movie, but it is a good one. Set in the 1930s in the underworld of the Irish Mafia, Tom Hanks puts in another very competent performance as father of a boy who witnesses a mafia killing. Good movie if you’re in the right mood.

  4:39pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Movies  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Escape

This summer the famous Enrique Iglesias had a concert in romania. It was all playback. But some of the sound guys recorded his real voice from microphone output: http://www.247365.com.au/extras/enrique.html.

I don’t know if this is legit, but it sounds horrendous nonetheless. Thanks Pete!

  2:19pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Music  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Yabbies

Well it finally happened, our little freshwater crab was eaten by the smaller of our yabbies. :(

  11:07am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

NetBites

– This unfortunate Suzuki driver thought it was just a puddle.
– Three ways to hypnotise a chicken. {src: Grouse!}

Emily trying to hypnotise a chicken in Nepal.

– Victoria has outlawed eating cats and dogs.

  3:55pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Miscellaneous  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Corporate Cringe

Perhaps Cap Gemini Ernst & Young will rebrand soon. Perhaps they will take inspiration from a corporate theme song (mp3, 2.5mb) from their accounting compatriots and be known as Viva Viva Consulting. Of course, ZDNet has a Top 20 chart of corporate anthems, guaranteed to have you either cringing in your seat, or in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. This week, McKinsey just got taken over by KPMG on the charts for number one position. Save us.

  11:53am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Last Night…

[00:59:12] Chris: eheheh… a person just called … wrong phone number…
Him: “hi… is this Asian Darlings?”
Me: “umm… i’m pretty sure you got the wrong number”
Him: *click*

  12:47pm (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Life  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Millennium Trains

Finally got to ride on one of the new millennium trains the other day. They are snazzy. They pull up to the platform with a high pitched, high tech, whirring sound. Stepping inside, the trains still have a, I guess you could call it, “new train smell” which is not unlike hospital disinfectant. The colour scheme is done up in a orange, which is tastefully used so it isn’t garish. The vestibule areas seem to be quite roomy. The seats are firm, but comfortable, swivel backwards and forwards smoothly and without clunking hideously, and I think they support most of your back. The window ledges have been adjusted so you can comfortably rest your arm on them. Likewise, the window rims on the sides are situated just behind the headrest so passengers with window seating can rest their head backwards. When the train takes off, its virtually silent – all you can hear is the soft drone of the air conditioning, together with a smooth acceleration. Multiple electronic LED displays in each carriage indicate stops, and, with joy, the train guard’s voice (more often than not they are speaking their non-native language) has been replaced with a clear recorded one. Gone from these trains are the days of, “Next step Benkstawn. Sten clear, door close.”

  11:05am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Travel  •  Tweet This  •  Comments (1)  • 

New HP Printers, crazy CD Burner Speeds

HP is going to release soon a colour laser printer for under US$1000 (A$1900), the Color LaserJet 2500. LiteOn is releasing a ridiculous 52/24/52 speed cd burner.

  10:48am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Computing  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  • 

Introducing…

The company formerly known as KPMG Consulting: BearingPoint (no spaces).

  10:44am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow  •  Business & Finance  •  Tweet This  •  Add a comment  •