Monday, December 24, 2007

Applying risk management to global warming

or better 'Applying risk management to climate destabilization'
A passionate science teacher makes sense. I love his graphs and reasoning.
Incidentally pretty much summing up my position in the 'Where it all ends'

Seasons greetings!


source: Bore me

Monday, November 26, 2007

Phew!

Now we can look forward.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Howard must go!

Please, dear Australians do the right thing.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

It's official: We are the biggest piggies!

Australia is the worst carbon emitter per capita. According to BBC news. Carma - Carbon Monitoring for Action - collates emission data in great detail world wide. 'Carma points out that while US power plants emit the most CO2, releasing 2.5bn tonnes into the atmosphere each year, Australian power stations are the least efficient on a per capita basis, with emissions of 10 tonnes, compared with the US's 8.2 tonnes.'

Sunday, November 11, 2007

School's out!


School's out!, originally uploaded by Bettina.

Ahhh - consider yourself blogged.
Chardonnay after school pickup. Lovely.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

For Michael: Feist: One Evening

Ohhhhh, have you heard/seen Leslie Feist yet? What do you reckon?
Feist on wikipedia
And have you got a you tube playlist perchance?

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Today is grassroots media action day for Burma.

Todays video 'treat' is: Opulent state wedding draws gasps in poor Myanmar

Krass!!

What can we do?

I haven't found an Australian Burma/Myanmar support site to donate to or sign a petition. Can anyone help?

One approach is to boycott the Chinese Olympics next year:

from US Campaign for Burma:

'China is paralyzing UN Security Council action on Burma. They are the main economic, military, and political supporters of the military junta. For fifteen years China has refused to press its closest ally to allow its people human rights, and used its veto power to block the UN Security Council from acting. As a result, the UN is making the same mistakes it made on Darfur and Rwanda. We are calling on people of conscience throughout the world to boycott the 2008 Chinese Olympics, join our efforts.'

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Richmond Birdwing


Richmond birdwing, originally uploaded by Fraserg.

Rapid population growth, greedy and unconsidered housing development and road building are a real threat to biodiversity and conservation here at the Sunshine Coast.
I'm stocking up my garden. Apart from fruit and vegetables I want to grow wildlife attracting plants.
Butterflies here are AWESOME - see the Richmond Birdwing with a wingspan of 14 cm - once common around here is now rare, because of loss of habitat and feeding plants for the larvae. I have seen ONE in the one and half years I've been here.
I would like to plant a Birdwing Vine 'Pararistolochia praevenosa'. Who's got one I could take a cutting? Or where could I buy one? Grateful for any pointers.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Kate Nash - Foundations (live at Later... )

fan-bloody-tastic

cracking drums too

thanks Dana for sharing :)

Monday, October 01, 2007

Digital Eskimo on sustainable design

I'm on board, Eskimo! On board the sustainability gravy train. It's the only way.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Noosa Council Free Tree give away

There is a couple more of these free tree give-away sessions. Tiny treelets, but free! and mostly native or at least good for our conditions. Bring your council notice along and get a couple of goodies like:
Banksia Spinulosa
Elaeocarpus Prima Donna
Grevillia
Syzygium luehmannii
Tidouchina 'Jules'
and the gorgeous Gordonia 'Silk Screen'
Find all instructions on my flickr garden set.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Intuitect

So I'm evaluating Intuitect. - a UX visio tool.
Unfortunately it crashes visio quite frequently. Flashbacks from times where your computer would freeze and crash as a matter of course ensue.
Intuitect has got some very cool features though - especially automatic updates to align sitemap changes with wireframes and navigation.
I so do not like their pricing strategy though - $800 and some for a years subscription for the pro version.
Until the application gets a bit more solid and the price drops to half at what they are demanding now I'll drop it or stick with the basic version... I'll just give it another try now.

The core of the experience!

Sweet sketchcast by Peter Van Dijck.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Oz IA 2007


It was my first Australian Industry do. Trying to catch up with everything now.
Random nugget of wisdom:
(For Sam!) Tableless web pages are like gold. With gold 24 karat is considered too soft, you want some impurities to make it stronger - so you need a few tables for stability. (Thanks James)
Ah and how I loved the 'Pinking shears' pattern talk from Sharon.
Here's the man! himself btw.

and this is for Eric to answer his apparel related survey question:

Parental warning - do not read this book!

'The naming of Tishkin Silk' is a most beautifully written and so sad and touching children story. I was really struggling reading it to Marla. In fact I was sobbing through the last two chapters. I was dreading bedtime, because Marla demanded we finish the book - quite rightly. She was helping out reading the paragraphs where I totally packed up. It was downright surreal.
So, go on then, read it
- I dare you not to cry.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Ways to be more frugal

This telegraph article made me laugh - lots. Check out the comments.
'Dead snakes make excellent and very economical disposal containers for used neon light tubes.'

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Indigenous state of emergency

Good posting on Larvatus Prodeo about developments since Howard announced his NT 'plan'. It contains good links amongst them to the National Indigenous Times.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

UX - IA - User Centred Design - What's in a Name?

Just listened to Jared Folkmann's pod cast on a 'Customer Experience Framework' he has developed as head of User Experience at gt.
His speech is very insightful for where I am at right now.

Jared has got a good point (amongst plenty others) when calling his area of expertise 'Customer Experience'. It is a more precise term for what he is doing whilst working primarily with retail clients. It makes business understand his role instantaneously and how he'll bring value to their business.

Having settled into Noosa with family, buying a house and getting it into shape I have also found my professional bearings. Using my IA skills designing 'User Experiences' for the Australian market I am focusing on eCommerce - I guess that could become 'Customer Experiences'.

other goodies to remember:

- ongoing 'rinse and repeat' cycles make for a great customer experience
- hire a smart analytics company
- 3 components of the 'Customer Experience Framework':

  • Who's visiting? (Segments)
  • Why are people visiting? (Intentions)
  • What are they doing? (Behaviours)
Thanks for sharing, Jared, and all the best.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Step by step: Peter Singer 'A Fair Deal on Climate Change

from Project Syndicate

  1. Establish the total amount of greenhouse gases that we can allow to be emitted without causing the earth’s average temperature to rise more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the point beyond which climate change could become extremely dangerous.
  2. Divide that total by the world’s population, thus calculating what each person’s share of the total is.
  3. Allocate to each country a greenhouse gas emissions quota equal to the country’s population, multiplied by the per person share.
  4. Finally, allow countries that need a higher quota to buy it from those that emit less than their quota.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Am I going to drown?


Having an after school cup of tea with Hillary yesterday she told me about an article she read saying the polar ice caps are supposed to be gone, finished, kaputt by 2020.
So having bought a new house I wondered if we'll still be dry.
I found this nifty google maps app showing projected sea level rise incrementally on google maps.
Seems we'll be dry, but awfully crowded.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Love Miles

..."But one idea in Heat that will gain momentum is that of ‘love miles’, analogous to the ‘food miles’ that are already part of the language. These are the miles we travel to be with far-flung friends and family, so feeding the aviation industry which is the world’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gases. Monbiot offers no solutions: “long-distance travel, high speed and the curtailment of climate change are not compatible. If you fly, you destroy other people’s lives.” Now where are you off to this summer?"...
Oliver Tickle, Resurgence
oh-oh!

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

'It works'


'The Secret' has old roots. This booklet was published originally in 1927. It's 'The Secret' in a nutshell - some 30 odd little pages. The foundation of sucess coaches wildest dreams.

'Change - doesn't happen until the fear of change is exceeded by the fear of not changing.'
Unknown

Sunday, February 25, 2007

ciw - blog, CMS, wiki - linking it all


- before our new 'clearly it works' site with CMS goes live - which might be a while - pesky work gets in the way :) - I'm linking some of my online stuff to create a (hopefully) coherent place.

Indigenous Australians

Indigeonus communities urged to apply for telecommunications funding - abc news
Indigenous Australians - Wikipedia entry

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Reading Matters

  • webdiary founded and inspired by Margo Kingston, author of "Not happy, John!"
  • Crikey: "The Crikey mission: Crikey's aim is very simple: to bring its readers the inside word on what's really going on in politics, government, media, business, the arts, sport and other aspects of public life in Australia. Crikey irritates the powerful by revealing how they operate behind-the-scenes, and it tackles the stories insiders are talking about but other media can't or won't cover."
  • Larvatus Prodeo: "Larvatus Prodeo is an Australian group blog which discusses politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective."