Swandives

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.