Swandives

Tee hee. I love this vid.

You know, I’m not surprised that it was Microsoft, not Google, that ended up with the share in Facebook, as reported here in the SMH. FB is actually a closed system and, if you read the term and conditions, it’s very, very proscriptive. I think it would appeal to the Big M’s business sensibilities in all the right ways. Just my 2 cents.

Phew! What a week! Bring on the weekend I say.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and signed up with the lovely people at Dreamhost. Swandives has long been hosted by this group, but I’ve been piggy backing off Justicle’s bandwidth. But it’s time to stop the leeching methinks.

I’ve also started a blog for me mum, Carol. She’s an artist and paints the most gorgeous things. It will be nice for students to be able to leave comments and so on, I think. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

A great presentation by Karl Fisch, who writes an interesting staff development blog for educators about the use of technology in schools (at least, that’s what I took from it).

A few weeks ago we decided to eschew a Foxtel subscription to buy DVDs. We figured it would be cheaper and so far it’s definitely worked in our favour. Imagine my delight when we discovered the local video store was selling Northern Exposure discs! I have the most wonderful coffee mug branded with the show’s title and the tagline: may the moose be with you. If there was every anything on television that spoke to my sensibilities, that show was it. I’ve since turned to eBay to round out the collection.

Nearly 17 years later, it’s still good! Actually, probably better. I’m rediscovering the wonderful nuances of the characters and, more interestingly, seeing things in the context of life experience that I simply didn’t have when I was younger. For example, the Shelly-Holling story arc was never really on my radar. Now, married to a man 21 years older than myself, I see it with an entirely different perspective. And it was so daring; I suddenly realised that we live in much more conservative times for all the changes and ‘forward progress’. I doubt the show would be a hit today because I doubt audiences would get it. Actually, I’m surprised it was ever a hit, truth be told. Surprised, and very pleased.

Northern Exposure always seems to be described as ‘quirky’ but on second viewing, I’d call it ‘accepting’. I realise this concept was the underlying theme of the whole show, but juxtaposed with the undercurrent of fear and hatred of today’s world it stands out as extraordinary. As a friend once remarked to me after watching an episode: “I feel at peace with myself and the world.”

The show first aired in 1990 so these days it’s considered a retro classic - which is not really a word I’ve ever associated with Northern Exposure until I realised there little to no technology onscreen. No internet. No mobile phones. Chris opines into a microphone where today he would no doubt be tapping away at a keyboard or podding. It is all the more wonderful for the lack of gizmos and gadgets. I am reminded of the joys of an analgue world. Then I remember that without digital, my Northern Exposure DVDs wouldn’t exist, and everything falls back into place.

Inside Facebook has this really interesting article online about the developer of the Where I’ve Been widget for Facebook, the MySpace-esque social networking site for GenXers. I must admit that, against all better judgement, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying using the Facebook, as I’ve mentioned before.

Anyway, Where I’ve Been is gaining new users every second, leaving the poor developer in a quandry. Everybody loves popularity and success but not when it costs moula. All that bandwidth is expensive. So he’s asking for donations - I wonder if he’ll get back his costs or, even better, make money?

What is it with women and map reading articles on news.com.au? Here’s the latest, which basically uses a study of spacial ability to draw the conclusion that lesbian women are better than heterosexual women at reading maps.

And the WORST thing about it is that it’s written by a woman! Argh! Obviously, people like myself are getting incensed and they’ve decided to pray on that to get a few more clicks. Oh well, nothing like flogging an issue to death, I say…

In other news, I’ve joined Facebook. Which isn’t very exciting in itself - after all, it’s just another silly social networking thingie. But what is interesting is that I seemed to have joined about a week before it suddenly gained enormous momentum. You see, not wanting to annoy my friends with yet another invitation to join some lame Web 2.0 site, I didn’t invite anybody. Yeah, I was a real Nigel there for an entire week. Then my girlfriend Sal mentioned she was on it, so I invited her. And then another friend, Brett, found me.

But then my friends list populated itself, seemingly overnight. Yesterday I had one friend, today I have seven. From people I haven’t seen for ages and ages! It’s really weird. And cool. I’m feeling loved!

EDIT: Actually, I joined on May 25. So five days ago. Perhaps I did accidentally send out invitations? I didn’t mean to…so sorry if I did.

Ah, those Chaser boys - you can’t take them anywhere

Spent today in a fascinating seminar about collaborative initiatives in education. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, gave the keynote speech and there was a lot to like about the entire day. But it was the Chaser’s Ten Questions directed at Mr Wales that really stole the show:

1. How are you enjoying Australia?
2. How do our computers compare to the ones in America?
3. Why does everyone in IT look so nerdy and yet you look like a daytime soap star?
4. Mac or PC? Do you really give a shit?
5. There are 1.7 million articles on Wikipedia. How long did it take you to write them all?
6. Craig Reucassel is a bit unhappy with the photo on his page. Could you upload, maybe, a better one for him?
7. My dog, he’s got this little scabs [? couldn't hear this] under his chin. I don’t know if you could recommend the number of the local vet?
8. Jessica Rowe and Peter Overton. Will it last?
9. Cracked pepper?
10. How do you feel about the fact that when I looked you up on Wikipedia this morning, I changed your page to say that you were a teenage drug lord from Malaysia?

It was funny because Jimmy was just about the only person who didn’t recognise Andrew Hansen so everybody cheered and applauded at the end, and poor Mr Wales thought we were all mad. I have a suspicion he thinks Aussies really are from another planet, because they also showed the classic advertisement about the rabbits in China which he didn’t get and had to have explained to him. I didn’t realise it was a cultural thing until today, although it’s fairly obvious when you think about it.
All that malarky overshadowed what was a really interesting presentation. And I found out that Wikia (the relatively new for-profit Wiki venture) has more than 12,000 articles about the Muppets! Now there’s a project after my own heart.

I notice the SMH has an article about the Chaser gag online at the moment. Boy, they’re the flavour of the month aren’t they? It’s great to see an ABC show getting that kinda attention.

Apart from being the world’s dumbest moniker evar, Web 2.0 has people buzzing around the web likes bees on speed.

Everybody’s trying to get in on the next-best Web 2.0 application, thereby proving (supposedly) that they’re hip and with it and ahead of the curve. I’ve been sucked into it all over the last few days and I have to say, I am over it. Big time. And the worse bit is how insidiously you can be taken in. So far I have:

• Finally bowed to pressure and signed up to Linked In.
• Downloaded a Firefox plugin called ScribeFire so I can supposedly cut and paste things to post here. Having used it, I can say it’s just as easy to open a new window or tab, and post that way.
• Joined in on a blogging experiment at work (I don’t have the heart to tell them that blogging is already passe). I am using a newer version of WordPress tho, which is kinda cool.
• Purposely NOT signed up for Twitter, coz I think it’s a dumb idea for people with too much time on their hands. But man, it has some serious buzz going on right now.
• Claimed this blog on Technorati.

I think that’s quite enough for now; I’m crawling back into my hole to scowl at the world.

But before I do, here are some things I am loving (no, it’s not all moan, moan, moan):

• The new Silverchair album, which is AWESOME, and more than a bit Splitenz.
• The new QOTSA album, in which Mark Lanegan from The Screaming Trees does vocals for at least one track.
• The Gretski show (aka Big Brother) is back on the tele! More on this later.