October 20, 2008 – 2:16 pm
Who would have thought that having an extra member of the household, and a few late nights, would take such a toll on my immune system? Certainly not me, as evidenced by my sudden and prolonged lack of health!
After four days of having my only outing be trips to the doctor’s office, a visit to see friends resulted in a go on a Wii fit. It gave me my best health related news in a while - yes, I need to lose a few kilos (and I managed to lose two last week just from being sick), but my Wii fit age is 6 years lower than my physical age!
Perhaps if it had more than one test to go on, the news might be different, but I’ll take the good news wherever I can find it.
October 12, 2008 – 8:48 pm
October 12, 2008 – 8:47 pm
The current financial crisis explained in simple terms (as to a 14 year old).
October 11, 2008 – 2:04 pm
Coffee roaster coffee. Corner of brown and Wilson streets, Newtown. Muted red walls and the feel of a converted laundromat, this place is a great spot to while away a Saturday afternoon, listening to an old Beatles LP on the old stereo in the corner.
The menu has some great ideas: the yoghurt with fresh strawberries, vanilla syrup, macadamias and mint leaves on the all-day breakfast weighs in at $9, and is a great combination of flavours.
Coffee - again, a decaf latte, is perfectly drinkable, and well enough made: there’s no latte art, but that’s he down-to-earth nature of the place.
October 9, 2008 – 8:00 am
I know there are reasons, on a crowded train, to sit on the aisle, next to an empty seat. Maybe you’re getting off at the next stop.
Eventually, though, someone will want to sit in the empty seat next to you. When that happens, can you please refrain from making loud sighing noises, as if it’s a massive inconvenience?
No-one feels sorry for you.
October 7, 2008 – 9:47 pm
It wasn’t until I spent some time reflecting on the long weekend that I realised it had gone a long way towards recharging me, and giving me more energy to get through this busy month.
For some reason, I was sick on Thursday, and ended up working from home on Friday - still not feeling well enough to risk a long trip into the office - so with Friday night, the long weekend began. There was a sermon to write, and some college work to make progress on, but to help get through everything, I re-watched a lot of the West Wing. The more I watch it, the more sad the current state of the US seems. I don’t think a show like that could be written these days: audiences are more cynical, and shows demand a higher level of “edgy” content to make censors sweat.
Saturday morning brought with it an early trip to a cafe, a visit to see my parents, and a lot of time trying to put the sermon together. Sunday was a bit of a sleep-in, then a day of finishing up the sermon, then heading over to church to preach.
Monday was a minor sleep-in, doing the bay run, a cafe breakfast with my brother, then a couple of hours’ worth of gardening, and a date with my wife - we went to Cronulla for a late lunch, an ice cream, and a coffee (the latter at Grind).
Perhaps it’s an illusion, but just to be catching up on the work around the house, putting the sermon to bed and spending some time as a couple made for a deeply satisfying weekend.
Have you ever caught yourself being so busy with things that you didn’t notice they were giving you fresh energy?
October 6, 2008 – 1:44 pm
From the amazing world of Flickr - photos of coat hangers. Better than it sounds.
October 4, 2008 – 7:54 am
[OLDaily] Short post asking the question if Facebook worked like Blackboard, how popular would it be?
Having used Blackboard for a course back at UTS, I can see the point - while it was good as a tool for facilitating online conversations, the very idea that everything is shut down at the end of every semester means that it’s about the institution, not the users or the community.
October 3, 2008 – 8:46 am
Strange Maps: World’s Earliest SatNav - a series of paper strips on a scroll, in a wrist-watch. Very clever.
September 30, 2008 – 12:54 pm
Piazza d’oro coffee. 101 pacific highway, North Sydney. Named after the ground floor, this lobby cafe/restaurant is a haven for suits who are looking for a place to spend their lunch-hour. Not cheap, but still fairly priced for north Sydney. Staff are professionally distant, rather than friendly. A big range of lunch options.
The decaf is ground to order, but lacks freshness, which is a shame. Quite drinkable, the place remains a pleasant spot for a workday break.
September 30, 2008 – 8:01 am
I’ve borrowed an iPhone for the week, to try a work out if it’svworth getting one: after watching some presentations on oz-ia, I’m convinced that it’s a good platform for a lot of people, but I like to do a lot of typing on a mobile device, so it might not be the best choice for me.
As far as the application launching process goes, it does a great job: it’s been easy to set up. A twitter client, my gmail access and a feed reader: better than my old k-jam in that regard. For writing slabs of text, though, it isn’t great.
Perhaps I don’t yet know how to make the most of the keyboard - it seems to have a lot of hidden enhancements, but the predictive text isn’t working for me in every case.
Overall, I’m enjoying the experience, but I don’t know if I want to make it a permanent move.
Worth noting too is that when you swap sim cards on an iphone, it doesn’t remember your SMS history.
September 29, 2008 – 9:18 am
Before the end of October, i’m expecting that I will have:
- prepared and preached a sermon on sola fire (faith alone)
- completed three assignments for college, including one that requires me to conduct a 30-40 minute marriage counselling session on a role-play couple - If you’d like to help with that, let me know
- resumed a bunch of church-y duties i’d left other people in charge of a month ago
- handed over a lot of responsibilities and picked up a lot if new ones.
Suffice to say, it’s going to be a significant month.
September 27, 2008 – 7:29 am
[markb] One of the benefits emerging with (Mac Application) Tinderbox is that its users are building straightforward mini-tutorials, like this one on how to integrate work-organisation-centric Twitter-like application Yammer with Tinderbox
September 23, 2008 – 8:50 pm
How true: how many people think that you can just add “easy to use” to the list?
September 23, 2008 – 8:41 pm
Caffe di Gabriel coffee. Shop 602, 207 Kent St, Sydney. Lots of outside seating for the smokers, and on the inside, there’s a high ceiling, a licensed bar, and a largish team of staff keeping everything moving along.
Coffee has a good texture, just the right temperature for drinking, with a slightly sweet finish.
September 23, 2008 – 8:29 pm
Karmee Coffee. 2 Cross St, Double Bay. A combination of a deli and bakery, this place too is crowded on a Sunday. Queuing at the counter gives you a chance to watch the staff interact: even when the pressure is on, they’re professional, and handle the varying temperaments of their customers.
Coffee takes a few minutes to come together, it’s well made and slightly sweet.
September 23, 2008 – 8:10 pm
Bar Indigo Blend (roasted by Single Origin). 15 Cross St, Double Bay. With seating inside, and in the traffic island in the middle of the street, this place seems busy all Sunday long. They make up for their 5-8 minute wait for a takeaway coffee, though, by being honest about the time it will take for the order to arrive. Yes, this is an upmarket suburb in Sydney - the store across the way that recommended the place charged me more for a greeting card than I ever thought I’d pay - but this cafe is quite reasonably priced.
The decaf latte has a good texture, and is neither bitter nor sweet. It’s the standard decaf that Single Origin make. If you’re in the neighbourhood, it’s worth a visit.
September 21, 2008 – 8:53 pm
I’m now back home after OZ-IA 2008. Somehow, Eric Sheid (Long Black, but was drinking lattes this week) manages to pack 22 sessions into a two day conference. I missed one of the sessions, but I tried to ask the speakers how they have their coffee.
Here’s what I found out.
Day One
Where is Square 1? - James Hunter (flat white + 1 sugar)
Psych your mind – IA and Social Computing Strategy - Matthew Hodgson (Cappuccino, no sugar)
Homer Simpson & UCD in large goverment change programmes - Caronne Carruthers-Taylor (double shot latte)
The value of an interaction - Joel Flom (flat white)
Ambient Personalisation & Rich Interaction Mechanisms - Christopher Khalil (strong latte, but only one per day)
iPhone: rethinking the mobile IA - Oliver Weidlich (didn’t get to ask him about coffee)
Automated tree testing - faster, better, smarter? - Sam Ng (flat white + 1 sugar)
UX Strategy: defining and executing strategies for your projects and teams - Steve Baty (flat white in the morning, double espresso at night)
Are users really ready for faceted search? - Elizabeth Pek (didn’t get to talk to her)
Search and sensibility: Four tales of search - Louisa Cameron (??), Angus Fraser (??), Scott Bryant(skim flat white), Chris Khalil (strong latte, only one per day)
Day Two
Website to Webapp – designing for workflow - Shane Morris (flat white + 1 sugar)
IA in the Cayman Islands - Sam Ng (flat white + 1 sugar)
Context is everything - Iain Barker (flat white)
Let’s talk about forms - Jessica Enders (doesn’t drink coffee)
Taxonomy, Social Networks and Pace-Layering - Roger Hudson (latte with 2 sugars)
How many seconds does it take to order a burrito? - Zafer Bilda (Long Black / Skim Cappuccino)
How about them apples? UCD benchmarking as an ROI technique - Andrew Boyd (flat white + 1)
Contextual Enquiries – the who, how, why, and when - Lisa Herrod (skim flat white)
From research fluff to useful tools - Stephen Cox (doesn’t drink coffee)
Taken out of context: old tricks, new dog - Margaret L Ruwoldt (plunger coffee, no milk, or macchiatos, except for Vittoria and Genovese, which she’ll drink without milk)
The Pleasure and Pain of UX freestylin’ - Donna Spencer (flat white with one), Gary Barber (latte)
A few summary stats:
75% - no sugar
42% - Flat White or Latte
25% - add sugar
21% - un-interviewed
17% - Latte
8% - non-coffee drinkers
4% - Cappuccino
4% - Long Black
4% - Plunger
September 20, 2008 – 6:50 am
When you least expect it, a milestone will fly by. Wordpress tells me that I’ve now written over 5000 posts on this blog, in the last 8 years. In that time, I’ve used Blogger, Movable Type, and now Wordpress, I’ve visited and blogged about over 350 cafes (some of which have closed down), and I’ve switched from caffeinated coffee to decaf.
I’ve also set up a blog for another family member using TextPattern.
What have I been talking about here for these past 5000 posts? I put the words from the blog into wordle, and this was the result.
September 20, 2008 – 6:39 am
I’m not generally one to use photos that other people have taken on my own blog, but if you’re that way inclined, this guide to finding and using Flickr images is easy to read, and comprehensive in its coverage of the different copyright models that Flickr users have for their photos.
