Hey everyone, hope you had a brilliant Christmas, however you chose to celebrate. I have my temporary access thing still going up here, but strangely am missing the computer far less than I do at home when it’s right there and connected. One of the factors that I’ve found has been underestimated is the simple fact of the weather - I forgot how warm it gets up here, but also how perfect the evenings are. I really don’t know how to express it, and sorry for any offence I may cause, but the brilliance of the weather here means the attitudes to life are a whole lot different: brighter, freerer, more… outside. The weather is the core of it. I’ve talked more to neighbours in the last two days than I have in Melbourne in the last year. Kinda saddening. ...

Step back. Don’t think so hard. Don’t try to hold on it when it’s going away. The horizon is tbe constant, but you need to keep moving towards it. Move forward, ever further, leaving your past behind like so many of yesterday’s memories and the embers of days past. let go of expectations. let go of demands. let go of frustrations. let go of pretense. be what you can be, and no more. let go of everything that is holding you back, and just jump. ...

I was going to write about this sooner but following the completition - for the most part anyway - of the site’s design I decided to go for a full format and in the process have been busy, as well as loosing internet for the better part of the day. Anyway. There’s plenty of news reports around - CNN, BBC, Forbes (problems grow to Adelaide & Perth), The Age (mostly AP reports); hell, Google News has 1000+ stories on it - so it’s pretty much reached international incident status [aside: this is what it takes for Australia to get on the news? sheesh]. Each report has its own spin, as the media is wont to have, inevitably, but these are the facts that i’ve gathered so far: 2 Lifegaurds get bashed by a gang of “youths with Arab or Middle Eastern appearance” (all of which have now been arrested by the way). A week of simmering tensions ensue, with much anger at the supposed “attack on the Australian way of life”, since lifegaurds are an integral part of the Aussie beach culture. Sunday: Rally of “white” Australians in Cronulla - a prominent beach suburb with a overwhelming majority of Australian residents, generally above average economic profile. Majority of ‘rally’ participants are from other parts of Sydney as Cronulla is easily accessible by train, young, and fuelled by alcohol. Rally quickly turns ugly as people with non-“white” skin are attacked simply for being in the area. Police step in and riot ensues. Ambulance attacked while treating on the victims of the mob. Sunday night, Monday night - gangs of “Arab youths” go to suburbs of Cronulla and Maroubra - a similar suburb, but further north and closer to the city. Cars smashed and various other incidents of violent vandalism. A number of arrests made. ...

Nick Carr - the Amorality of Web 2.0 This article address some of the especially overhyped points of Web 2.0 – that essentially it is “the saviour” of computing. While I’ve only come across a little of this kinda hype, certainly some of the words that are quoted there are quite scarily… intense. I would say that Carr’s mention of the “cult of amateur” is spot on, but there is something of a contradiction, a little hypocritical in saying so on a blog. ...

Every man and his internet-enabled pooch probably knows that over the last year or two, Big Apple Event equals New iPod. And the speculation kept mounting each time that this would be the one, the killer, the Video iPod that would surpass all comers, and at the last one, dropped in almost casually with a “One more thing…” title, they finally Did It and unleashed the next generation of iPod… without actually calling it that, or putting ‘video’ in the name at all. ...