topicalhuman.com

I’m all packed, and ready to roll out of bed in the morning, hit the shower, wriggle into my clothes and head to the airport via Jules place. I’m on holidays - booya!

New Zealand, here I come.

I’ll be back on the 17th September. Email or SMS me, or leave a comment below if you need to get my attention. I’ll check all three occasionally while I am over there.

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Now playing: Rollins Band - Up For It
via FoxyTunes

I just received an email from Griffith Uni (where I’ve been known to attend a couple of courses) advising me about iOrpheus. As with the Howard Arkley exhibition mentioned below, I won’t be here. Doh!

Nonetheless, I’m fascinated by the premise of an interactive, hi-tech public opera (or musical performance of any kind). Apparently there are ways for the public to be involved making sounds with their mobile phones and iPods. I haven’t delved too deeply, but it looks pretty cool! Check it out, and if you do, leave a comment so I know how it went down.

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Now playing: The Slackers - Crazy
via FoxyTunes

I’ve just noticed that the Queensland Art Gallery has an exhibition of the works of Howard Arkley, an Australian artist who produced some very  interesting and accessible (that is, not “too arty”) work. Check it out here.

Be quick - it closes on the 16th of September. Unfortunately I won’t be back from New Zealand before it closes, but if anyone decides to check it out, please leave some comments on what you thought.

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Now playing: Radiohead - No Surprises
via FoxyTunes

Australia’s best basketballer, Lauren Jackson, has won the Defensive Player Of The Year award in the WNBA.

Awesome interview with a bloke who explores urban underground structures, particularly stormwater systems.

Recipe for Hainan Chicken.

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Now playing: The Wailers - Simmer Down
via FoxyTunes

I’m off to New Zealand in a few days time, for about two and a half weeks. So I’m busy preparing for the trip, and may not be posting much between now and leaving. In fact, I probably won’t be posting much while I am there either, as I doubt I’ll have much internet access at all. Not an entirely bad thing anyway! I will also have limited access to my mobile while I am there (this is entirely deliberate…). Have fun without me!

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Now playing: Cat Stevens - Here Comes My Baby
via FoxyTunes

Boing Boing has links to a bunch of cool sixties songs.

I especially like the Zombies doing She’s Not There, and Creeque Alley by The Mama’s and The Papa’s.

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Now playing: Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
via FoxyTunes

How can he pushers of DRM honestly expect people to suck up their crap? This story of getting seriously inconvenienced by Google Video’s DRM terms is utterly ridiculous!

And by the way, so much for not being evil, Larry and Sergey…

[Update 23/08/07] Google have offered a better arrangement to fix this problem. It still doesn’t change the fact that DRM sucks, though.

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Now playing: Custard - Nice Bird
via FoxyTunes

I just saw this post from Joe Wikert, where he points out it is annoying and frequently unproductive to post only a portion of your syndicated post in the RSS feed. Joe says:

But what really irks me though is the way the blog is handling the RSS feed. I can’t stand blogs that don’t offer full content RSS feeds. If you’re only publishing a headline or teaser and expect me to come to your site, forget it. Life’s too short to keep up on all my RSS feeds and try to visit your site along the way.

Feeds from sites like Treehugger, and the Fairfax Media are a pain in the neck, because I have to visit their site, and not just read the whole story in my RSS reader. Sites like Cheeseburger Brown are cool, because the whole (and often lengthy) post can be viewed from my preferred RSS reader (currently Bloglines).

I’d be interested if anyone had the opposite view, and their reasons for thinking that way.

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Now playing: Darren Hanlon - Elbows
via FoxyTunes

Just a test post here, checking if FoxyTunes/SignaTunes is working the way I want it to…

Looks okay so far…

[Update] Yes, it works, and was super easy to set up (at least it was with Wordpress).

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Now playing: Darren Hanlon - Falling Aeroplanes
via FoxyTunes

Podcasting Tips.

SellingPower.com

LifeHacker.com (and article on Bonsai).