Category: Life

Remember all the crazy emails that floated around last year about the numbers 9 and 11 in the WTC attacks in New York? Well, take that idea to an extreme and then beat it to death and you get this nonsense.

The 2001-2002 Winners have been announced!

I’d always been a fan, but I never appreciated the artistry behind those warning signs. (link)

If you’ve been wanting to get Internet Explorer to do a little more work, here are some cool downloads to make your surfing a little lest treacherous. (link)

It’s silly, but I found myself giggling at this one from The Onion today. Shouldn’t I be working? (link)

This article is a good summry of the pros and cons of spending hours in front of a computer screen instead of hours in front of a tv. (link)

The story of businesses offering stupid offers on their websites by accident is nothing new. 5 years ago, it was the main message of a lot of my eCommerce presentations. Why can’t big business get its act together? link

Things are gearing up for TechXplore 2002, where I’ll be part of the CA team helping Arthur Phillip High School in Sydney win international recognition for their technology idea, whatever it will be. I’ll keep track of the progress here. Good Luck, guys!

A sweet hacker-tracking initiative called ‘HoneyNet’ is already tasting success; the concept involves parking ‘honeypots’ around the net to attract the vermin, and then catch them in the act. Who says the net wasn’t a self-healing system? (link)

Kelly & Sons Real Estate had a good opportunity to make some money this week. They had a few offers on some choice real estate in South Sydney – which is allegedly what they’re in the business of selling – and apparently chose instead to burn a few bridges.
My sister was looking forward to being able to move into a nice house which she’d had spent a lot of time (and money) arranging with this organisation, and was expecting to sign on the dotted line, when the price negotiations were unexpectedly ‘reopened’. Without going into detail which may get me into trouble; let’s just say that the house has instead been sold to someone else, despite my sister’s belief that the deal had been done. At its best, the outcome shows poor customer service. I’ll leave you to decide what the alternative explanations are.
Despite my Mum’s successful (and honest) career in real estate, I’ve always believed that the Real Estate industry hinges around increasing the price of something without actually producing anything (see Fred Dagg’s commentary, here). I don’t like it when any organisation which has the choice of making twice the amount of money with a little extra honest effort, instead goes for the quick dishonest grab. It doesn’t make business sense. It doesn’t make common sense. That’s when stuff like this happens.
By the way, for the benefit of out of towners, there was a group of outlaws called the Kelly Gang who gained notoriety in Australia’s colonial history for their money-making enterprise: bank-robbing.