Category: Life

If you’ve ever used the Google search engine, and wondered why it works so well, here’s an explanation about how it works. (link) (note: I think this was posted about three weeks ago)

I haven’t decided whether to ‘get into’ Big Brother this year (the reality TV show where 12 people live together in a big house… blahdiblah). Last year, I kept an eye on the cameras and occasionally ventured into the chat rooms, but this time around, the cameras are pay-per-view, and the chat rooms don’t work properly. What’s a boy to do? Frankly, I’m more into the technology and the sociology than the anatomy.
Nonetheless, I’ve found a more interesting exercise: to watch everyone BUT the Housemates’ reactions to the house, through the online forums on the official website. At writing, it’s completely unmoderated, and there’s a big outpouring of negative sentiment right there on the official website: about the cameras, about the new rules, about the site, about the email updates… Now, I’m all for free speech and everything, but normally businesses who have a huge crowd of people screaming abuse at each other in the foyer make some attempt to remove them, or at least see what the fuss is about. In this case, nothing is being done to stop it, so I’m going to pull up a deckchair for a while and study my fellow man.
Perhaps perversely, I don’t think it’s as interesting watching the people locked in, as it is to watch the people *locked out*.

There have been a few interesting developments for the ‘Friends of Kenny’ petition today, which will no doubt lead to a bit more discussion, so I’ve put it on the Message Board; feel free to read, sign up or contribute to keep in touch.

I don’t know what they’re playing at, but it looks like the The Kangaroo Creek Gang has gone out for a little plastic surgery, now that they’re cartoon stars. The new looks aren’t too bad (it was impossible to do *worse* than the old character designs), but will Kenny Kidnarecognise his old friends?

It’s Charli’s Third Birthday today; and although it was a weekday, we still managed to get all the exciting stuff happening; Charli unwrapped all her presents and took delivery from some balloons (all the way from Sydney!) Thanks to Nanna and Poppa in the east!
Charli’s all grown up: she has her own two-wheeled bike and Barbie now, and everyone knows the cool toys are always for ‘3 and up’.

I’m always a sucker for conspiracy theories; I think this one rates pretty well, for what it’s worth. ‘Hunt the Boeing has a few photos it claims disprove the official version of events of September 11 at the Pentagon. I’ve always had a few questions about it, but the implications of this are a little hard to fathom. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting exercise…

In a sort-of tribute to the passing of Dudley Moore, I found myself researching the schools of opinion on the sentence structure which talks about “not only (a) but (b)” and whether an ‘also’ should be in there (Not Only, But Also was the title of a TV series which Mr Moore produced with the brilliant Peter Cook.) (link to the discussion)

Here’s a challenge for wordsmiths; construct a narrative using only words which contain both ‘S’ and ‘A’. (SA – Essay – Geddit?) Although it sounds pretty bizarre, some of the entries are sheer brilliance. (link)

It seems to be all the rage for online banking services to offer ‘Account Aggregation’ these days; a service which allows you to access all your accounts from one, ‘secure’ place on the internet, even if they’re with other institutions.
Nice idea, but the stupid thing is that each bank offering this service specifically forbids you to do it through any other bank, because it means that you’ve had to store your account details somewhere other than your own skull. So, if I have accounts at three different banks and want to make use of this service, I have to violate the conditions of two accounts in order to get any benefit.
I don’t forsee this particular technology fulfilling its promise, do you?

Another one of those crazy internet pastimes for the collection: a ‘Googlewhack’ is when you type two words into the ‘Google’ search engine, and get exactly one match. A pointless, friutless exercise, but an exercise in Zen. (link)