This Is What Gets Invented...

When you let engineers go to strip clubs.

And The Rest Of The Street Went Dark...

Merry xmas everyone! Although unseasonably warm here, GW and I enjoyed our first married xmas in slovenly style as we ate, drank, napped and enjoyed our pressies during a bleak, rainy day. Wouldn't have had it any other way. Perfect.

For those with a competitive nature, here's what your xmas lights should aspire to next year. Now get to work on it...

Our House, In The Middle Of Their Satellite

I managed to grab a copy of the beat for Google Earth that runs on Mac OSX that bobbed around a few weeks ago, so I spent one night trying to find satellite shots of the houses I grew up in back in the suburbs of Sydney. Because street mapping isn't integrated into the Australian maps, I literally had to find a landmark (Parramatta Jail) and follow the streets to my neighbourhood. Since both houses of my youth were seperated by a small distance as the crow flies, I managed to to get them on the same zoom level. Finding Northmead (my later years) was easy, but I haven't quite levelled down the exact rooftop for my North Rocks residence, where I grew up. When I work it all out, I'll post it, cause I am sure you can't wait to see blurry shots of my childhood stomping grounds.

Enter Microsoft's new Live service, with satellite "bird's eye" imagery so clear it makes you think twice about sitting near the window. Below is our Norfolk abode where you can quite literally see our the three south-facing windows of our apartment. Wow. Microsoft have trumped Google on this one. Compare the image below to Google's Norfolk shot I posted months ago for example. Imagine South Korea's reaction to this level of detail.

Click to enlarge.

Flocked This One.

This post bought to you directly by an open source browser called Flock. The 'directly' is important there.

Flock includes integrated web services, such as being able post a blog entry directly from the browser. This saves you the tedius work flow of going to that site, logging in, clicking to create etc. Great blog feature is being able to highlight text on a page you are viewing, and literally right click to start a blog post with that quote! Flickr photo library is directly integrated also, such that you can see your photos in a top-pane and just drag them into your post. Snazzy!

It is a browser still months away from a stable release, so not for all your surfing needs, but carries a great glimpse of the tighter integration of web-services into the browser level of the user's net experience, part of what is termed "Web 2.0". i.e. Smart people want to tell us that this is the way our internet experience is headed.

Some other great features include integration with community (or remotely stored) bookmark services (so your favourites aren't tied to your machine!), and the awesome "Shelf". Simply a rich-media multi-item clipboard for storing web page snippets, and even adds a reference to it's source. Perfect for reviewing or blogging later.

One more browser ain't a big leap for me, as I couldn't blog with Camino, my usual browser of choice, anyhow. I flip-flop between Camino (for login sites due to it's tight integration with Macs Keychain (meaning that I don't have all my passwords buried within the browsers security system) and Deer Park (a G5 optimized version of Firefox 1.5, just a mighty quick renderer). So something new shouldn't be a hassle.

Now the only question is are the efficiency gains nullified by my constant browser switching? :) Can't kill me, right?

Gratuitious Beauty Shot

A little more of Haystack Rock, Cannon Beach, Oregon. Click for full glory view (c) Me.

Two half-hands are better than one?

Drinks last night at Farenheit with the lads, Brad, Hollywood, and a brief appearance by Ed who still managed to have a few lemon-drops despite the obvious unwillingness of any non-female staff member to serve him. That place is too bloody loud.

At some stage we helped a girl try to find her dropped ring. Eagle-eyed Ed was the hero here, but it was only after moving bar stools and jackets to discover the escapee-jewelry that I noticed she had a cast on her right hand. I showed her mine (*cough*) and we had a laugh and chatted, only to realize that we had broken the right hand on the same Saturday, and were due to get the casts off on the same day next week. How odd. Somehow The Brad failed to get a picture of us pair of invalids.

If I have to be thankful for small mercies, its that I don't have a full-cast, and that mine is shaped to hold a beer.

Image shamelessly lifted from the beautiful galleries at www.alwayscurious.com

I Am Death

We have a bloke where I work whose last name is "Death". How awesome is that? I am sure he's heard it a thousand times before, but I couldn't resist telling him that he is the only guy in the company who can call in sick everyday:
"Sorry, can't come in today, there's been a Death in the family."

Need a measure of your mortality? Try The Death Clock. Based on a few inputs, you get handy countdown of the seconds till your eternal sleep. It seems my last breath is due Nov 22, 2041. Bugger... I had plans.

Of Models, Hit Men and Cheese

I hope this news snippet grabbed from Fark is true. It's bloody hilarious. Made even more poignant by the image they attached to the article.

Little sobering though when I consider I have often thought that my wife would kill for cheese...

Had The Balls To Win (but what about next time?)

When we win back the Ashes, you shouldn't expect this level of reaction. Now if the Socceroos win the World Cup (that's soccer my friends) next year... then we'll talk.

Here's some other various oddities and infoties to kick off The Silly Season...

Those crazy Italians and their coffin girls.

How to have sex with a chair, courtesy of an Icelandic stage hypnotist.

Ever wondered what a meteor coming to earth really looks like?

And props to the new release of Firefox, version 1.5. Stable, fast and some improved menu functions (like a menu shortcut to open a new Mail message). I am actually using a third-party build optimized for the G5 chipset, called Deer Park to avoid icon/name copyright issues, although it stills runs as the application called Firefox. Apparently the original name of the Firefox project was Deer Park. Lightning quick for page rendering on my beloved iMac. Info on that, as well as a G4-chip optimization found here.

Late addition: Oooohhhhh.... so close! WMV video.

Speaking of Wrigglers..

Congrats to this bloke and his lovely wife, who became parents last Friday with a 7lb-something baby girl (whose name I will let them publish just in case it's not for the blogosphere).

I can already feel the fear of the first young fellow she brings home to a family occasion. Meeting dad and his family will be something reminiscent of this..

Premature Evolution

I did wonder if posting this joke while GW is away required some disclaimer...