This PDF has a lot of interesting and useful info about the Transit of Venus on Wednesday the 6th of June. http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~smaddiso/download/factsheet_24x.pdf

More info: http://moca.monash.edu/outreach/transit.html

In Melbourne, it'll begin at 8:16am, and end at 2:45pm.
It doesn't happen very often. Your next chance will be in December 2117...good luck with that!

Back in 1768, mad King George III said something along the following lines to Captain Cook: "I say, James, the Royal Society talked me into stumping-up the cash to send you on a jaunt to the Pacific for the transit of Venus next year. If you happen to bump into Terra Australis Incognita on the way home, be sure to claim it for KingMe and Country. There's a good chap; now, run along."
Captain Cook set-off with a re-purposed ship built in Whitby, unaware that Dracula would land in the same town a mere 129 years later. In between, as since then, some other interesting stuff happened, as is the wont of History.

I'm not even going to link to the articles that are panning the sneak-peek of Peter Jackson's first "Hobbit" film at a convention a few days ago.
( +3 Rant of rantiness )

Ultra-efficient LED puts out more power than is pumped in
Hey, let's not quibble about The First Law of Thermodynamics and what it has to say about the impossibility of machines having greater than 100% efficiency. This story isn't being as widely reported as it deserves, and often with sensationalist or downright wrong headlines. What you have to realise is that it emits far more light than the amount of electricity it's supplied, but that much of the light it produces is converted from ambient heat. Crucially, conservation-of-energy still applies; no laws broken despite appearing to be 230% efficient.

Think about that for a moment, because there are several incredible implications:

• Lighting homes and cities for a fraction of the electricity/cost
• It's a solid-state device, so you can running electrical devices without the need for cooling fans (large, noisy, power-hungry, moving parts that wear-out)
• It converts (often-unwanted) heat and has a useful side-effect

This is a game-changer.
Give this team a Nobel Prize in Physics!

The light output is tiny at present, though that will improve in future versions. Next, scale it up, and built these LEDs into everyday devices, for example:

• Flat-screen TVs would work like a silent, slimline air-conditioner that has no hot exhaust port.
• Laptops and fondleslabs that are cooled by the thermoelectric effect of their screen, not by fans/heatsinks or scorching your lap. It would feel slightly cold to the touch.
• Deploy on a massive scale to replace other forms of lighting (inclufing the flickery, ugly, polluting CFL globes that are hardly "green"). The billions of lights in factories, offices, billboards, and lamp-posts lining roads that criss-cross the planet would collectively do something to combat global warming.

Happy Chinese New Year. It's the year of the dragon.

Today's Australia Day. Sure enough, The Mad Monk has chosen today, of all days, to launch an insensitive tirade against the Aboriginal people of this country. And, when a small number in Canberra rightfully protested his provocative talk, somehow the media spun it to make it appear that a mob of Aborigines attacked the PM and leader of the opposition. *headdesk*
Meanwhile, in Egypt, they're still commiserating and celebrating in equal parts, because it's the anniversary of the revolution on the 25th of January, which saw Mubarak kicked out. I think they're far better-off without him in charge, though the revolution will continue until SCAF stop beating, sexually assaulting, and illegally detaining their own citizens, and hand power over the a democratically elected government.
For now, they protest in Tahrir Square, since it's a case of toppling a dictator but not his regime.

(Photo from AFP, via Mohamed El Dahshan, @TravellerW)
It's a timely reminder that our countries might have differences in nationalism, but all need human rights and good governments.

Interesting idea for touch/sense/movement interface and creating music/sounds: Mogees
Mogees is a project that uses microphones to turn any surface into an interactive board, which associates different gestures with different sounds. This means that desktop drummers could transform their finger taps and hand slaps into the sound of a marimba or xylophone.

This no-budget science fiction short looks better than most movies
One looks tells you it's far from no-budget, more like self-funded with the hope that someone steps-in and pays them to shoot a feature-length version. Still, it's got some nice twists on old themes, and looks very well made. Entertaining and worth a look. :)

The Century Of The Self-Full Length Documentary
This four-part, four hour show documents the rise of consumerism, all-pervasive advertising, and how Freudian psychoanalysis is used in PR/advertising to affect every aspect of our life, politics, and daily habits. (via fengshuiguy)

Ycombinator -- funding organisation of innovative tech startups such as Scribd, Reddit, and Dropbox -- unveils another mission: Kill Hollywood
Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.

LinkedIn is a popular networking site, with the twist that it's for professional purposes.
Despite this, I've never attained work through the site, nor do I know anyone who credits the site as the primary vector for a job/contract finding them.
Over the years, it's scraped-up a whole lot of personal data -- the sort of professional data that is personal/private, sometimes necessary in a professional context. Even metadata, such as who you've worked with and your professional timeline, is valuable to dataminers.

And, now they've pulled the sort of trick you'd see on cruddy sites such as FaceBook. Yup, LinkedIn has made drastic changes to its privacy policy, specifically geared towards selling your information to advertisers. like FaceBorg, they made these changes without any announcement. And, like FaceBorg, they enabled all these options by default. This is poor form, antithetical to a site that claims to work for your professional interests.

If you're a member of LinkedIn, I recommend you login, and update your account setting, particularly the following:
Manage social advertising: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-social-advertising&tab=account
Manage enhanced advertising: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-enhanced-advertising&tab=account
Data sharing with third party applications: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-data-sharing&tab=groups
Partner InMail: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-partner-inmail&tab=email
Edit to add: Ta to Rosemary for noting the following extra setting, which I didn't see there only a week ago:
Manage settings for LinkedIn plugins on third-party sites: https://www.linkedin.com/settings/?modal=nsettings-offsite-privacy-management&tab=groups

For those of you who've not seen this news about usekh (see his update here), the latest is that the operation went well, he's out of hospital sans a 6cm brain tumour, and healing well.
But the prognosis is that even with treatment it will return, and on average people get 1-2 years.

I can't tell you how gutted I am.

But, it seems his sick sense of humour is undiminished.
He even has a few extra piercings where they stapled him back together.

And, here's some good news.
The Sisters of Mercy will be playing in Melbourne on the 28th of February. Lachlan's reaction, when I informed him, was true to form for the goth he is:
...fuck....FUCK..God I will get to see sisters of mercy before I die
I'll get him a ticket and will bundle him onto my car and drive him there myself if I have make sure he gets there.
If you want to chip-in to get him a ticket, that'd be ace.
Most of all, though, I think he'd like to see the Sisters with some of his best friends...so be there!

Hey, LJ-developers, you know how every programmer worth their salt knows to test new code before they deploy it?
Just wondering how you managed to pull-off such a borked, FaceBorg-esque failure with the new LJ commenting system, that's all.
OBTW, you still haven't fixed the update screen since you broke it.

Witnesses report rioting in Tunisian town Sun Dec 19, 2010

The Arab Spring uprisings began one year ago today. Events that precipitated the movement days earlier, and matters quickly came to a head in Tunisia. From there, the peoples' protests spread to Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and to a lesser extent other countries in the region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

With the announcement today of the death of Kim Jong-il, I can't help but think that this been one of the worst years in history for despots, authoritarian regimes, corrupt governments, and kleptocrats.

Went for a walk in the Dandenongs with a small group of friends on Sunday.
The whole area is beautiful. You can add this route to a number of walks I highly recommend in the region. The Thousand Steps walk is quite popular on weekends with tourists, and groups of joggers who grunt up and down the winding path. It's worth the effort to get to the top, where there's a picnic spot, water and a BBQ (you can cheat and drive to the one Tree Hill picnic spot if you must, but the walk there is the best part).

Bit tricky to take photos since although it was overcast, everything under the tree canopy was in shade. Leads to really contrasty photos with glaring skies...early morning or late afternoon are probably better times of the day here for photography.

The following morning, my knees were complaining about all those stairs, but came good by that night. Went on one of my 'round-the-neighbourhood walks that evening and was mostly trouble-free. I was more put-off by walking through five head-height spider-webs over the course of the walk. And the thunderstorm that popped-up half-way through. Still, flat ground and good pace, so I pretty pleased with 8.7km in 1 hour 40 minutes


Thousand Steps summit, near One Tree Hill. Contrary to the name the area was given years ago after over-logging, there's stacks of Stringybark trees there now. (embiggen)

( Three more photos )

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/crikey-gossip-dismissed-in-shield-debate/story-e6frfku0-Crikey 'gossip' dismissed in shield debate

NSW Attorney General Greg Smith has dismissed popular online news and opinion provider Crikey as "largely gossip" as he defended the exclusion of bloggers from shield laws for journalists.

At first glance, this article appears to be a politically motivated swipe at Crikey. In other words: right-wing politician disses progressive media site that likes to have a go at politicians when they screw-up. Given the Coalition's propensity to breed nutjobs who habitually screw-up, they're often the target (the ALP also cop their fair share of sprays), and it's natural for Greg Smith to feel threatened.
What's not right, though, is for someone in a position of such power to publicly comment in such derogatory terms about a media organisation, especially one with such a wide readership.

Digging deeper, I think his motivation isn't only for personal, political gain. He's sticking-up for the mainstram media, and the media bosses such as Murdoch and Fairfax, which donate a handsome amount of money to his political party and have a distinct pro-coalition slant to their articles/opinion-pieces. The article itself, is loaded with spin, hardly surprising, since news.com.au is owned by Murdoch and reads like a mish-mash of Fox and Sky news.

It's also a pre-emptive strike against the rise of New Media. By casting bloggers and other online media in a bad light, it diminishes their ability to be taken seriously, diminishes their ability to discuss issues that the big players refuse to tackle and, in essence, props-up the failing businesses of the large, old media empires.

Where does one draw the line between blogging and new media, and the sort of "respectable" media that NSW Attorney General Greg Smith thinks is deserving of protections such as shield laws? Major newspapers in Australia have regular opinion-pieces under the heading of "blog" (even in print, bizarrely), yet they're covered. Some of those authors haven't been to journo-school or have qualifications, yet they get the benefits of the law. Meanwhile, a career journalist writing in Crikey or an independent blog has no such protection. I think this legal hypocrisy is crucial to hamstringing the emerging blogosphere and Citizen Journalism, and perpetuating the stranglehold of big media companies over the landscape as they try to transition from print to digital.

My quest to sample locally-available ciders continues.
Here's a follow-up to a previous post with cider-tasting notes.

Monteith's Crushed Apple and Pear Cider Blend
Right form the start, there's distinct apple and pear flavours. I think they got the mix about right (unlike the disaster that Strongbow tried to foist on us a few years ago, which claimed it was apple cider, but mixed in pear, presumably because it was less expensive or sweeter?). Good body. It's a strange beast; normally, I'm in the mood for apple cider _or_ pear cider, not a mix. It's really quite drinkable, unlike combining a good cup of tea and a good cup of coffee.

Old Mout Cider
Old Mout (rhymes with "fruit") is a scrumpy from New Zealand. It smells alright, but the moment it hits your tastebuds, you're thrown back to pre-school by the taste of distinctive taste of Clag. The after-taste is fine, but I still can't get over the comparison with a certain non-toxic craft-clue. Sorry.

Dirty Granny
This tiny 345ml bottle is packed with flavour. Quite sharp with an astringent/tart hit, like it's brewed from freshly squeezed granny-smith apples and very little else. Made in Dandenong by the Matilda Bay microbrewery. Maybe a bit sharp for the palate of some, but I think it's yum! Look for the label with knitting.
Ta to lirion for the recommendation.

Westons Premium Organic Pear Cider
Strong caramel flavour initially. Syruppy mouth-feel as it settles, and broad, fruit flavours emerge. It's definitely pear cider, and it's a fresh pear taste unlike other pear ciders. Sweet but no over-sweet, with a crisp after-taste. As with other English imports, it's lightly carbonated. Thoroughly deserving of the "Premium" moniker.

Genesis
The label claims "Premium apple cider", which is a bit of a stretch. It also says "Made from 100% freshly crushed apples", which I would find easier to believe if it wasn't so watery. There's quite a lot of Jonathan apple aftertaste, almost like Appletiser or other sparkling apple juice drinks (with a similar level of carbonation). In other words, it's not a complex taste, and there's little body. It's not outright offensive as 5 Seeds, but it's not a label I'll look for again.

+46 Apple Cider by Herrjlunga
As you can guess from the name and latitude, this cider comes to you from Sweden (via Mulgrave). Like every other Swedish cider I've tasted, it's really quite sweet and bubbly. There's a strong taste of real apples in there, with a tiny hint if bitter, and then a sticky toffee-apple aftertaste.

[via geekweevil]

The past week has been pretty damn good.

Saw the Kronos Quartet with flaxendandelion and co. Second time I've seen them in about three years, and they lived up to my high expectations (as did the acoustics of The Melbourne Recital Centre). The programme opened with a selection of works by John Zorn. It was a good showcase of his choppy, avant-garde style, at times whimsical/humorous. Other highlights included a traditional Swedish love-song, "It Raged" by Scott Johnson, and also "Flow", a short (and relatively subtle) piece by Laurie Anderson. Australian composer, Steve Reich, created "WTC 9/11" for Kronos. It tightly meshes-in soundbites from witness interviews to form a bleak and effective soundscape. I was delighted that the encore featured the world-premier of a Philip Glass arrangement of Bob Dylan, re-arranged by Kronos Quartet. I'm usually pretty dismissive of covers, especially if you have a fan's familiarity with the original version, but this one worked for me because of the Philip Glass touches and Kronos magic.

VNV Nation released a new album, "Automatic", which was all over YouTube in moments. It's in a similar style to "Of Faith, Power and Glory", only a bit slower and pared-back. Okay, there are one or two tracks that sound a bit 80s (and some duds such as "Streamline", which invites comparisons with -- it hurts to say this -- Andrew Lloyd Webber) but you could dance to some of them. It's more on the dance/pop side of Future-Pop than the industrial side. My picks are "Resolution", "Gratitude", "Nova", and "Radio".

Dropped-in on a friend who's making a short film. Fabulous to see the first few snippets that have been filmed, and to chat with some of the mega-creative talent who have recently joined the production. Inspirational stuff.

Paintballing for artbroken's Buck's a lot of fun. I think what made it was the awesome assortment of POD's friends and blithespirit's organisation. The tone was brought down a bit by being lumped-in with some bogan strangers, and because the scenarios seemed more geared at wasting ammo (and therefore money) than engaging fire-and-movement tactics. Still, an entertaining afternoon all-up.
Is it just me, or could Paintball be improved by mashing it up with a Zombie Flash-Mob?

If you're into photography, this PDF from National Geographic is packed with useful info: Ultimate Field Guide to Photography.

Speaking of photography, here's a stunning montage/timelapse that makes me want to give my camera a holiday in Iceland: Midnight Sun | Iceland.

This morning's trip to Bunnings yielded an impressive haul of seedlings: a few types of chillies, various herbs, and a load of basil. Normally, you just don't plant Basil seedlings before Melbourne Cup Day with Melbourne's weather, but it feels like an early Spring...I just hope we're over the last of the cold mornings. Looking forward to summer, and once again having fresh pesto and chili sauce (in two varieties: Chili Doom and Munitions-grade).

Took trips to two different electronics shops to get the components I wanted (and a nifty tool, since you can never have enough). The first place gave dreadful customer service by ignoring what I'd said, wasting my time by showing me that a component is not in the catalogue, and then refusing to look-up an equivalent in a different brand that they do stock. The second shop was far better, and earned my money.
This will feed my pet Arduino project.
Updating Microsoft Visual Studio Express (which is free-as-in-free-beer) takes a surprising time. But, it's worth it for the shiny. And it compiles quickly. Those in the know will be wondering what those two have to do with each other (ie: that's not how you cut code for an Arduino)...let's just say this project is getting to the point where a Windows app and an Arduino app talk with each other over a USB cable to slurp-down data and give realtime feedback. The more I learn about the Arduino and the stuff some people do with it, the more I think it resembles Katamari Damacy. I'm confident no magic smoke will be lost by the time I get around to hooking it up to my camera.

Space over Time
This infographic shows space launches from various contries over time, and for various purposes (military, commercial, government, amateur). Interesting to see how things have waxed and waned. Also, surprising to see that Australia has contributed so much to this field.

On a related note, here's an article from one of my favourite authors, Neal Stephenson: Innovation Starvation
That reminds me: has anyone got their hands on his new book, "REAMDE" yet, and care to give their opinion?

David Lynch has released a song, Crazy Clown Time.
It's about what you'd expect when you combine David Lynch and the topic of Crazy Clowns. Come to think of it, this music would fit right in with the Red Room dream sequence from Twin Peaks.

( Cider tasting notes )

We were robbed! :(
Better luck next year, Collingwood.

Boston Dynamics' AlphaDog Quadruped Robot Prototype on Video Brilliant stuff. It's three years since the Boston Dynamics Big Dog video, so I'm excited by the advances: smaller, faster, lighter, quieter, better range, and a heftier load-bearing capacity. Also, improved obstacle-jumping, and the ability to get back on its feet.

LitReactor is up and running.
In their own words:
LitReactor is a destination for writers to improve their craft; a haven for readers to geek out about books; and a platform to kickstart your writing goals.
Founded from some of the key players behind the ground-breaking author site ChuckPalahniuk.net, LitReactor boasts an array of features for up and coming writers and passionate book readers. Monthly online classes, the best Writers Workshop online, and a robust Magazine jampacked with Interviews, Reviews, Columns and more, all await you within our pages.

The Kronos Quartet are returning to Melbourne!
Sounds of planetary harmony
Sounds like it could be a little more experimental than their previous concert ("Music for Four Fences" had them play heavily-amplified barb-wire fences with their bows, and the encore was a spine-tingling cover of "Flugufrelsarinn" by Sigur Rós).
You may have heard them play in soundtracts such as "The Fountain" or "Requiem for a Dream".

Peter and the Wolf
Suzie Templeton's award-winning masterpiece (an Oscar, and at Annecy, as well as a BAFTA nomination), "Peter and the Wolf", is showing at ACMI in Melbourne, accompanied by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Four screenings per day from Tue the 4th of October to Thursday the 6th.
Youtube has a few clips of this film and some making-of info, and it looks absolutely stunning. The animation is beautiful, post-production innovative, and the adaptation is quite clever (the end is different, if you're familiar with the story).
More into on Wikipedia

The Bolter says "I'm in shock" that the courts agree he's a racist prick...didn't come as a surprise to anyone else.
True colours
The article's a good read because it goes into detail of the judge's point-by-point take-down of Bolt's offensive activities and farcical defence. This one's good for that, too: In black and white, Andrew Bolt trifled with the facts.
The Hun's response was to give Bolt the front page to spew his hate and say there's something wrong with the law. Sore loser!
I'm pretty happy with our free speech laws, but think we need to beef-up our standards to combat racism. You have to balance an individual's privellage to say what they want in public with the population's right not to have offensive shit crammed down your throat. How Bolt got-away with it for so long is a mystery to me.
Miranda Devine, ever unafraid to be an extraordinary tool in the media (and make QandA must-cringe TV),. chipped-in her opinion in the Hun: Bolt case has ominous echo
The Federal Court has shown us that the Racial Discrimination Act can be used to silence unfashionable opinion.
Miranda, since when has it been fashionable in a civilised society to be a racist jerk? Besides, he has a two-page daily column, and a weekly TV show; he's hardly been silenced.
Bolt case spurs Libs to bid for race act revamp...in an effort to catch the redneck vote. George Brandis would be Attorney-general if the coalition win the next election. That, and his talk since the Bolt trial result, should scare you.

Speaking of telling the truth, this guy does it:
BBC Speechless As Trader Tells Truth: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World

Apple fears Samsung tablet will 'seduce' customers, court told
Oh, you...take me now, Galaxy Tab 10.1. :)
Seriously, Apple, go jump...the company is the worst of the worst for lock-in and predatory practises, putting them down there with Miscoroft in the 90s. I can only hope their recent patent-trolling backfired horribly (for starters, they may be unable to sell the iPad2 in much of SE Asia). It's ironic that they have turned into exactly the type of company they campaigned against in their iconic 1984 Superbowl ad.

This flowchart is really quite nifty:
Navigating NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

William Gibson has a new book on the way! I think it's a collection of previously unpublished short stories and essays.
He also said on Twitter he couldn't recall saying/writing this excellent line, but was happy to have it attributed to him: [photo].

It's been a pretty good weekend...combination of relaxenating and catching-up with friends, some of whom I've not seen in what seems like ages (actually, months is ages).

I'll be cat-sitting for the next week or so at AJ's, then-tagging-in originaluddite. Nice change of scenery, plus four crazy cats. :)

Cameron Rogers makes some great points about the zombie genre: Zombies: There’s A Reason You Like Them. Then he follows-up by honing his comparison between zombie flicks and one of my all-time favourite films, Fight Club: Zombies: The First Rule of Fight Club is, well, brains.

There's an incarnation of TED happening in Melbourne soon: TEDxMelbourne.
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Take a look at the te videos of speeches/presentations there, since they'll entertain and educate you, and change the way you think.

In that vein, anyone interested in the way things are moving in the future, and where the internet is taking us, watch this video: British Council Annual Lecture 2011: The Internet of People

Nikon has finally jumped on the mirrorless camera bandwagon: Nikon Goes Mirrorless with the ‘1′ System Essentially, it's an SLR without the mirror. This means less moving parts, faster burst-mode, less surfaces to collect dust, and a smaller body because there's no pentaprism. It also means it'll autofocus in video mode. You'd think these things would all make for a good camera...but for the price of a reasonable SLR, they've produced what amounts (IMHO) to a very average point-and-click camera with interchangeable lenses. The sensor is so small that wide-angle shots are an impossibility, as is Depth of Field control. The lenses are a new standard -- meaning the new camera bodies aren't backwardly-compatible with the brilliant range of Nikkor lenses that have been interchangeable since 1977.
If you want small and cheap, go for a point-and-click camera.
If you want small and interchangeable lenses, go for one of the Micro Four Thirds cameras, which are made by many companies, are compatible with each other, and have a reasonably sized sensor.
If you want quality and don't mind large size, weight, and price, stick with an SLR.
I can't believe what Nikon has done here... *shakes head*
I think the fad of mirrorless cameras is just that: a fad. Sure they have some good features from a point-and-click camera, and have the potential to borrow a lot of the quality from SLRs, but Nikon have shown how it's a worst-of-both-worlds exercise. Ugh.

Speaking of fads, here's confirmation of something I've long suspected: 3D films are waning: Who Killed 3-D?
I think 3D has some things going for it, but the effect adds nothing to the story for 99% of films, and it screws with the eyes of many viewers. Oh, and is it ever a rip-off.

Fans of Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, and computer games, take note. The MSO are putting-on a number of concerts next year that should interest genre/subculture enthusiasts.
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra season 2012

Like many, I was sickened during the week by the execution of Troy Davis.
Crikey delivers a detailed analysis and background: Do you know what it says on the death certificate for anyone who’s executed?
You have to wonder how he was found guilty when there was no confession, no weapon, no reliable witnesses, and somebody else confessed to the crime. And then there's the barbarism of capital punishment.

One of the funniest WTF newspaper headlines you're like to see: Gordon Ramsay Porn Dwarf Dead In Badger Lair

The Axis of Awesome have updated their hit comedy song: The Axis of Awesome: 4 Chords (2011) Official Music Video

Cowboys and Aliens, like The Mummy, is best viewed as a rockin' roleplaying game where the GM fudges dice-rolls heavily for the sake of everyone having a fun time.
( Spoiler-light review )
Champagne B-Grade!

Super 8 is a send-up of J. J. Abrams films, as well as a send-up of every popular sci-fi film set on Earth from the late 70s to the mid 80s. ( Spoiler-light review )
The lesson I took away from this film is that you can spend $50 million and still not have enough to afford a tripod or script-editor. You'd be more entertained if you stayed home and watched the X-Files movie on DVD.

My TV died the other day. It didn't so much die as become possessed by a poltergeist. Even with the batteries removed from the remote control and the remote receiver covered-up, it merrily switches itself on or off, channel-surfs, and does all sorts of chaotic stuff with the on-screen menus.
I hardly watch TV, so it's not a huge loss...it's more a matter of convenience, and the inconvenience of getting a new TV.

Still, the incident was well-timed, since it meant I was spared the tasteless media frenzy around the 11th of September.

For a series of memorable and iconic photos that reflect the occasion, and show things how they were without pushing an agenda, you can't go past this iconic set from the Huffington Post: 9/11: The 25 Most Powerful Photos [via flaxendandelion]

The world's changed a lot in the last decade.

I don't feel any more threatened by terrorism since 9/11 (even when travelling in countries bordering those in Axis of Evil, or second-tier Beyond the Axis of Evil status), nor do I feel any less threatened by it since the War Against Terra. I am, however, fascinated and horrified by the last decade's rise of the following: warmongering so profligate that it's a strain on the global economy, Islamophobia, thuggish nationalism, theft of personal freedoms/liberties/privacy, and security theatre.

It gets me thinking: if only we focused such resources into a War Against Carbon.
A War Against Poverty is a nice idea at first glance, but I fear that those with the ability think it's too expensive. Statistically speaking, in terms of saving lives and improving quality of life, terrorism is near the bottom of the list; we should give serious thought to a War on Tobacco and a War on Drink-Driving. The War on Terror, like the War on Drugs, was a bust. I'm sick of it all and would suggest a War Against War...but we already tried a War to End All Wars last century; it proved to be an even bigger waste of life, and had little lasting positive result.

In more cheery news, I purchased more camera gear! Ordered a medium-sized softbox for about what it would have cost to make one myself with gubbins and bits from Bunnings. Much as I love working with natural light and playing in near-dark, I'd like to learn more about motivated/controlled lighting. Time to experiment with strobism and portraiture. :)

And, it's always nice to be reminded of the awesomeness of Edward Gorey. Here's The Gashlycrumb Tinies.

Rating Shakespeare's plays is a little like rating Ikea furniture or scoring in Scrabble. In the case of The Bard, it's one point for each death, and a bonus multiplier for each title-character that gets killed-off. R&J scoops big, Hamlet is brilliant, and Richard III is a glorious bloodbath. Midsummer Night's Dream is, IMHO, over-rated.

Saw the Bell Shakespeare production of "Julius Caesar" the other night with v_collins_1000, Ian & the Mododrummer (after a nomtious Japanese dinner).

It's in one of the more intimate theatres in the Arts Centre, and the minimal staging makes great use of the space...from above, it would resemble a crowd pressed around a boxing-ring. The first half gets off to a good start, and despite appearing to move slowly, is a great build-up to the second half.

Brutus comes-across as a noble patriot who'll stoop to anything for the right cause. Mark Antony appears on the surface to be simple, but can actually scheme with the best, or turn public opinion to his favour with double-edged words. Caesar himself was in turns fatherly and yet so aloof and detached from reality that you were glad when he was dispatched -- took a while for me to place the accent of the actor (Alex Menglet) but it's only a minor distraction from a deft performance. For me, Cassius stole the show...the twist in this Bell Shakespeare production is that he's played by a woman (Kate Mulvany), and wow does she make the role hers as a magnificently manipulative bitch.

Well worth seeing!
http://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/whatson/2011/juliuscaesar

Is it too early to start planning my next holiday abroad?

Quick update:

I'm back in Istanbul. It's gorgeous, and I hope to return some day. Been zooming around western, southern and then central Turkey for the past fortnight.

The official tour was jam-packed with places to go, things to see, but is now over. Fun group, and a bit sad to see them off. I'm extremely glad I booked a few extra days to explore Istanbul in more depth and tick-off a few more items on the wish-list. Flying out tomorrow night, and will be back in Melbourne in the wee hours of Tuesday.

Apologies for the lack of updates and photos. Been run off my feet, had poor or non-existent internet, and was firmly in Holiday Mode, which meant the little rest-time I had was spent sleeping. I intend to sort and process the Turkey photos and turn my sketchy notes and crowded memories into a coherent account, and shall post it here over the coming week.

Today was my penultimate day in Egypt. I fly to Turkey early tomorrow morning.
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Cairo, downtown, looking east down Ramses Street from the seventh floor of the hotel. The buildings immediately in front are 5-6 stories high. (Pardon the distortion in this quick'n'dirty panorama stitched from two photos.) It's a similar angle to this photo at night, when I arrived in Cairo the first time , about 2.5 weeks ago http://damien-wise.livejournal.com/386723.html

I'd like to return to Cairo some day. Preferably with a friend to share the experiences with and stop me getting lost. And, during a month when the weather is more concussive to walking. I think the subway would be a great way to go further afield, despite what our guide said. I've explored downtown Cairo, but there's still much to see of the city, and then there's so much more to see in other areas of this vast metropolis. Hmm, is it too early to start researching a return-trip?

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My favourite era and style at the Museum of Islamic Art was produced by the Mamluks of the 13th to 15th century. This is when a style of strong geometric patterns came into vogue for Islamic art, and surfaces were richly inlaid with carved oak, ivory, ebony and copper alloys. These geometric patterns incorporated eight, 12 or 16-pointed stars, which give rise to far more intricate patterns than the six-pointed stars or three-fold symmetry commonly found in Islamic art of most other eras. Historically, the Mamluks were slaves (“Mamluk” means “owned”) who had found freedom through excelling in military service, and they grew to become political leaders, benefactors of Islamic collages/universities (Madrasas), and some of the most gifted masters in artistic crafts.

The walk back to the hotel was a bit longer and by a slightly different route, since I got pleasantly lost in the dusty back-streets of the market, which were festooned in Ramadan streamers.



Back-streets near Ataba Square, with Ramadan decorations

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Margaret and I went to explore the Coptic section of Cairo, which is also part of Old Cairo, and has a strong Islamic presence. Over 90% of people in Egypt are Moslem, but there's been a long tradition of Coptic Christians here, and their history has, over the years, infused part of Cairo.
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Approaching the Church of St. George, which is flying the Greek and Egyptian flags
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Our visit to the Museum of Cairo took bout half the day, and I felt I'd hardly scratched the surface.


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Nearby was the market. This wasn't the tourist-market, but the real one for locals. Sure, you can find plastic trinkets, fridge-magnets and cheap jewellery if you look hard enough, but it's mostly about local residents buying and selling everything from clothes to second-hand books to fruit, watches, and so on. Here, they have everything.


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In the distance, we spotted a familiar landmark.



Half an hour or so later, lush farms gave way to the outskirts of Cairo, and we plunged into the metropolis again.
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Maxwell's Demon has lived in the baking-hot sands of western Egypt for millennia. Nobody's seen it, so it may be quite small, but it has a good throwing-arm. For years, Maxwell's Demon been doing what it does best: sorting-out black particles from white. It's a monotonous task, and leads to chromatically-challenged deserts. First, we arrived in the Black Desert, and half an hour or an hour down the road, we found the White Desert.
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It might not have been quite what we were expecting, but it was still camping in the desert under the stars. Spotted two shooting-stars and four or five satellites. Overhead, the Milky Way was a twisting, silver ribbon that bisected the sky.

This morning, we said goodbye to Alexandria, and headed west along the coast. The area we stayed in was older, and many facades had a run-down/grungy appearance, but I enjoyed the charm that came from the 1920s and 1930s touches. Further along the coast, it was more generic.


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Qaitbay Fortress is built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The fortress is an imposing limestone structure, and was built by Sultan Qaitbay in 1477 AD, presumably to guard the entrance to the harbour.


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Outside our window is the Mediterranean Sea. That brings-home some of the geography of the place, and helps explain why Alexandria was such an important tactical position for Alexander the Great.



On the right of this photo is the citadel, guarding the entrance to the harbour (which is a little farther to the right, out of shot). It's reached by walking left around the curve of the bay, and was built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It's about half an hour's walk away. A similar walk around the bay in the opposite direction if the Library of Alexandria.

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Ancient Egyptian architects were certainly big on sight-lines, and where rays of light would strike at certain times of the year, or times of the day. For example, in the holy-of-holy of part of Karnak temple following the previous photo, I found a pair of antechambers. It was around 11am, and a beam of sunlight was shining straight down. It was only afterwards that I recalled Egypt re-jigging its timezones after the revolution (they optimised two into one, which played havoc with some computers/devices). An hour later, when I returned at noon, and the midday call to prayer was echoing over the temple, the beam was on a slant. The beam had gone a bit indistinct, so I ran-about and scuffed-up the dust from the floor and waved my hat around to give the air a good stir. :)


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The temperature was already over 30 degrees, and balloon was at the whim of a breeze that was blowing us away from the Valley of Kings. Instead of flying over the valley, we circled over some flooded fields beside the Nile, and enjoyed the view of the sunrise over Luxor.


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Late in the morning, we pulled-in to a pre-arranged mooring-point, and hopped aboard a minibus. After driving for three hours, we arrived in Luxor. Formerly known as Thebes (the capital of Egypt), it's also the site of Karnak Temple. Luxor is quieter than Cairo, and the streets are less crowded and far cleaner, though they fight by the same traffic-rules.


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In the morning, we said our farewells to the Nubian family, and climbed aboard the falucca again.
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At night, we pulled-over beside a local farm, and slept on the deck of the Felucca.


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Around lunch-time we were welcomed aboard a felucca by a pair of local sailors. The craft has one main deck, with a piece of canvas awning stretched over most of its area. Each end has a raised deck with compartments beneath it. Being a shallow craft made it highly manoeuvrable, especially on the occasions they raised the centreboard. This traditional design hasn't changed much in thousands of years.


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The first thing you notice about the temple to Ramses II is that the statures flanking the main door are enormous.
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Inside Philae Temple, all surfaces are carved in intricate detail.
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The three main Pyramids of Giza and three of the smaller pyramids, and Cairo in the background. We arrived early in the morning to beat the crowds, but it was still very hot, and the smog/haze was thick.
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After an eight hour drive that cot across the Sinai Peninsula, and dipped through a tunnel under the Suez Canal, we arrived in Cairo.

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Ramses Street from hotel balcony

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