by cameron | Nov 27, 2006 | Podcast
What do Borat, Global Warming, Milton Friedman and Bono have in common? They are all mentioned on today’s show!
Shane Williamson joins me again today to talk about:
the woman who kept her dead husband in the cupboard for three years
the death of Milton Friedman
the global warming controversy
Cranky Middle Manager interview with Michael Urlocker about disruptive paradigms
new AJAX start page – Original Signal
The Gary Oldman Nokia N93 ad
and then I finish with an interview I did earlier today with Emma Phillips who wants to work with Bono.
by cameron | Nov 27, 2006 | Uncategorized
UPDATE November 30, 2006: Arrrrghhhh! Bad news on these pens. They freakin LEAK. I opened one today, started writing in my Moleskine, and noticed my fingers were covered in blue ink! In the bin they go!
As I sit here this morning doing my GTD Weekly Review (before my Productivity Buddy Michael Specht emails me to tell me he’s done his), I am impressed with my new Moleskine (yes, I’m still doing the Moleskine thing and LOVING it… quite the obsession) pen – the BIC Grip Roller. I think I picked this one up at Officeworks last week and they are inexpensive, fat, nice grip and, most importantly for the Moleskine, they dry VERY fast. The other pens I’ve been using over the last couple of months tend to smudge and blur if I don’t leave the page open for a few minutes after writing. And as I’m usually scribbling down notes and then shutting the book, it ends up looking very messy indeed.
Did you know…
BIC was founded in France by Marcel Bich with Edouard Buffard in 1945. The two bought a factory and set up a business making parts for mechanical pencils and fountain pens. In December 1950, Marcel Bich introduced his own ballpoint pen, and named it the BIC. The ‘h’ from Bich was dropped in order to avoid a potentially inappropriate English pronunciation of the name. Although the pens weren’t entirely new (Bich obtained patent rights from Hungarian inventor, László BÃró), the process of manufacturing was. An inexpensive, and at the same time reliable, ballpoint pen was introduced to the world. In early September 2005, BIC announced that it had sold its 100 billionth disposable ballpoint pen, making it the world’s best-selling pen.
– Wikipedia
by cameron | Nov 25, 2006 | Uncategorized
Hell yeah. I’ve been waiting for this moment for at least a year. Today, after several failed attempts over the last few months, I finally managed to get Google Calendar and my Outlook calendar on my PDA synchronized.
I initially tried using CompanionLink for Google but couldn’t get that working, despite several emails with their very responsive technical support team.
Finally I turned to ScheduleWorld’s Funambol solution and got that working, again after several emails with their very responsive technical support team.
I could go into detail about how it works, but EngTech has done a terrific job here.
Why does it matter? Well now I can expose my Free/Busy times to anyone, anywhere in the world, using Google Calendar, and I think I can save myself several hours a week of “does this time suit you?” emails.
Check out my calendar!
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Iraq, Uncategorized
Australians all let us rejoice! For our Federal Government has been absolved of all responsibility for the AWB scandal! It turns out they knew nothing! Nothing at all! It’s all okay. Breathe easy Australia, your Government knew nothing. They didn’t read the secret memos and cables. Andrew Bolt seems to think this is a good thing. The AWB was secretly paying Saddam Hussein’s regime hundreds of millions of dollars of kickbacks, the Australian Federal Government was getting memos about it… but they didn’t read them, so it’s all okay.
The other news to almost get skipped over today is that AWB were told, a year before the Australian public, that we were going to support an upcoming US invasion of Iraq. This was a full year before Prime Minister Howard claims he even made the decision!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m no leftie. I’ve voted for the Libs in every election, State and Federal, since I was 18. But this all sucks. It’s time for a major shake-up. Unfortunately, the ALP are a bunch of nogger-heads. (That was “nogger”, Kramer.). The Dems are dead. The Greens? Who is left? Those right-wing Christian nutters? Crikey. Slim pickings on the voting front this weekend. Whatever happened to those nice Communist kids who were around in the 70s?
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
Click on the this box to become my buddy. Please?
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
I’ve decided we might start the night off with some poker at my place and then see what happens.
Details here. Please register at Upcoming if you’re coming. Anyone who turns up who is not registered will be turned away by the guard dogs.
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Podcast
okay folks so… I’ve given zero thought to what we should do on Dec 2nd to celebrate the 2nd anniversary of G’Day World and therefore the 2nd anniversary of Aussie podcasting. How about a poker night at my place? BYO food, drinks and poker chips. Also bring $20 for the pot. Texas Hold ‘Em. Pubs up the road in case we get too many people. Which isn’t likely. 🙂
Do me a big one and go download today’s episode of showBUZZ as well. Or just listen to it here:
[audio:http://showbuzz.thepodcastnetwork.com/audio/showbuzz_012.mp3]
by cameron | Nov 24, 2006 | Uncategorized
Des Paroz sent me a link to this article in The SMH that talks about how inaccurate the food labels in Australia are.
Julie Robotham reports:
Of the 19 products that claimed to be low in fat or calories, 19 per cent exceeded the fat content published on the panel while two-thirds contained more calories than specified – in one case by nearly three times.
So it’s even worse than I imagined. I knew you couldn’t believe it when a food product is claimed to be “lite” or “low fat”, for reasons I’ve discussed here before. This new data just makes it even harder though to know how many calories you are consuming and what percentage of those calories are coming from fat. In a country where Type 2 Diabetes and obesity are on the rise, we need to do a much better job of
a) educating people how to eat sensibly and
b) making sure that food manufacturers accurately report what their foods contain
This should partly be the responsibility of the government, partly of the media (congratulations to Fairfax and Julie for getting this story out) and partly it lies with us, folks. We need to vote with our dollars. Perhaps someone should start a “website of shame” that highlights companies who aren’t giving us accurate information.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | science, Uncategorized
From David Berlind over on ZDNET:
Judge Leonard Davis ruled that a patent granted in 1996 to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, is valid. The patent describes the implementation of several aspects of the 802.11a and 802.11g wireless standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The court also ruled that Buffalo Technology, a small maker of Wi-Fi routing gear, had violated this patent….
…..More than 100 companies could end up paying royalties to CSIRO for use of the technology, claimed Daniel J. Furniss, a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew, the law firm representing CSIRO.
I know people who know people at CSIRO. I’ll try and hook up someone for the show in the immediate future to get to the bottom of this. It seems that not only did CSIRO invent insect repellant, gene splicing and myxomatosis, they also invented wifi. Hot damn. Maybe they can explain why I can’t get my modded xbox to talk to my new netgear router and therefore have to waste lots of blank dvds to get the latest episodes of Weeds, Heroes and Studio 60 onto it.
by cameron | Nov 23, 2006 | Culture Jamming
Some quotes to think about…
So by the end, they (MSNBC) were ordering us, if we booked one guest that was anti-war, we had to book two that were pro-war. If we booked two guests on the left, we had to have three on the right. At one meeting a producer suggested booking Michael Moore and she was told for ideological balance she would need three right-wingers. It became more of a nightmare, as the war got closer; and then we all got terminated three weeks before the invasion was launched, and it was purely political.
– Jeff Cohen, noted US TV media critic
“You can educate the people about what is happening in the world, but you can’t ever go to impose a will which is not their own,â€
– Venezuelan-U.S. Attorney, Eva Golinger, author of new book, Bush vs. Chavez: Washington’s War Against Venezuela (Monte Avila Editores, 2006, Caracas).
Q. How has Microsoft Australia demonstrated that it is innovative?
A. Microsoft Australia values innovation very highly both internally and also in terms of our engagement in the local economy. ….. ……..
Another good example has been the joint venture that Microsoft sponsored with PBL to create the start-up company NineMSN which has been an innovative and successful new company in Australia.
.. Microsoft Australia CEO Steve Vamos. My spies at Microsoft Australia don’t agree with that statement. I keep getting told that most of the innovative people have left the company in the last few years and that the company is getting more and more like IBM every day. NineMSN is an example of innovation? Jamming together Australia’s biggest media giant with the world’s largest software company nine years ago?
Steve also mentioned Victoria.Net which (I believe) was the idea of one of my old managers, David Sajfar. Great idea for bringing together Microsoft’s developers in the local market but… cmon… it’s a portal. Those two things were Steve’s top examples of local Microsoft innovation? A nine-year old JV with Packer and a portal? Sheesh. Buy Google stock.
