Canadian actor and director Megan Park’s latest feature, My Old Ass, trailer, would be a sure bet to win movie title of the year, should such an award exist. Otherwise, My Old Ass is on my want-to-see movie list because of the time-travel-like, older-self goes back in time to see … | Continue reading
Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald: I suspect restaurant and cafe customers have little idea of the profound, quiet stigma directed towards service workers. There is an assumption in this country that wait staff above a certain age are where they … | Continue reading
The shortlists for the 2024 Tiny Awards have been published. Now in their second year, the Tiny Awards honour “interesting, small, craft-y internet projects and spaces which basically make the web a more fun place to be.” Think the work of small, and independent creatives. To be … | Continue reading
This news, via Kurzgesagt, may not be what some people want to hear. Exercising is useful, necessary in fact, but not so much when it comes to trying to lose weight it seems. Active people who work out regularly do burn more than inactive people. But only very little, often as lo … | Continue reading
If you enjoyed the novels of late British author Douglas Adams, you may enjoy this in-depth article about his later life, by Jimmy Maher. Adams, it seems, did not restrict his particular brand of humour to the written word. A regular customer at a coffee shop I used to go to, tol … | Continue reading
Back in 2008, I had a brief tweet exchange with another Twitter member, about the merits of LinkedIn*. At that point, I was a member, but really didn’t like the platform. I thought having a personal website, showcasing your abilities, was a better idea. #IndieWeb me was thinking … | Continue reading
JTR, writing at The Art Of Not Asking Why: Indie blogs are like good spots in town. Sure, they’re on the map, but you need to ask the locals to point them out. In terms of indie blogs, this means other bloggers. Word of mouth is sure a great way to spread the news about […] | Continue reading
Stefan Bohacek writing on his Mastodon page: The problem with redesigning your personal website is that it looks great for about a week, and then you start to hate it. This is a problem of the ages. In the late 1990’s I’d redesign my websites (I had several back then) every few w … | Continue reading
I might be a fan of science-fiction stories, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the like, but of the seventy-five titles listed by Esquire magazine, on their best sci-fi books of all time, I’ve only read one. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams. T … | Continue reading
Webmentions allow you to notify the publisher of a website that you’ve mentioned, or linked to, one of their pages, from your website or blog. Webmentions are commonly used in the Indie and Small Web communities, and have existed as a W3C recommendation since 2017. But Webmention … | Continue reading
Melbourne based Workplace Relations lawyer Paul O’Halloran, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, on Australian “right to disconnect” workplace laws that come into effect on Monday 26 August 2024: Well, laziness is an increasing trend in the cases I defend for employers. Putting … | Continue reading
Well, this will be something. A sequel is in the works for The Devil Wears Prada. By the time it is released, assuming production starts sooner rather than later, the follow-up will pick-up almost twenty-years after events of the original film. That’s a long time in the fashion w … | Continue reading
Let’s go back in time. Way back in time. To about this time in 2000. I had, or was just about, to start my first job as a web designer, at an exciting, multidisciplinary design studio, on Sydney’s trendy urban fringe. Ok: Surry Hills. I’m pleased to say I was headhunted into the … | Continue reading
From The Daily Aus. Aside from being linked to a slight decrease in life expectancy, COVID-19 was the third highest cause of death in Australia in 2022, claiming almost ten-thousand lives: COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in Australia in 2022, according to AIHW. It w … | Continue reading
Apparently red wines made in Australia — and quite possibly elsewhere, I imagine — have been increasing in alcoholic strength over recent decades. This seems like a mystery of the times, because the go-to culprit, global warming, may not be responsible. Rather, the way grapes are … | Continue reading
Rhett Allain, writing for Wired, looks at the physics of this important question. If humanity is ever to establish bases on the Moon, ways of keeping occupants fit in the low lunar gravity need to be worked out. A wall of death sort of gizmo, that’s a little like a stationary ham … | Continue reading
Break out the coffee and the cake: a celebration is on the cards. Tomorrow, Threads, Meta’s answer — and much needed foil — to X/Twitter, notches up its first birthday. I was there as the platform began rolling out, and managed to score (just) a relatively low (five-figure) badge … | Continue reading
That’s the good news. Tory Shepherd, writing for The Guardian, says the recently discovered exoplanet, dubbed Gliese 12b, might be able to host liquid water. We all know what that means. If there’s water, there may be life. Gliese 12b is so named because it orbits a star called G … | Continue reading
This is sad and concerning news. The Melbourne based bookseller had become well ensconced in the Australian literary realm, since being founded about twenty-years ago. The company, which is also listed on the ASX (though trading of shares has been suspended), had been struggling … | Continue reading
I might say that of U2, whose music I once really liked, especially the stuff they did in the nineties. Achtung Baby. Zooropa. Pop. Even 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind. These albums mostly represented their electronic music phase. I’d have them on loop for days at a time. … | Continue reading
The shortlist for the 2024 Miles Franklin literary award for works of Australian fiction, was announced earlier today. Of the ten novels named on the longlist in May, the following six titles have been included today: Only Sound Remains, by Hossein Asgari Wall, by Jen Craig Anam, … | Continue reading
Given the choice, a regular person, like you or me, who decides they’d like to become a superhero, will choose teleportation as their superhero superpower. In preference to three other choices they could have made: mind-control, flight, or supernatural physical strength. This is … | Continue reading
The Honeyeater is the second novel by Sydney based Australian writer Jessie Tu, and will be in bookshops on Tuesday 2 July 2024. That’s tomorrow. I read Tu’s 2020 debut A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing almost four years ago. It was the story of a once child prodigy musician, wh … | Continue reading
Is there a version of Tetris that requires the player to try and spell words with the Tetris pieces, as they fall from the sky? If there is, I’ve not heard of it. But, that’s not saying much, as I don’t know a whole lot about gaming. Anyway, Tetris Font, developed by Erik Demaine … | Continue reading
What happened, or was there, before the Big Bang that is said to have brought the universe into being? Was there nothing, to which something came? It is the question of the ages. In his recent documentary series, Universe, British physicist Brian Cox posits that the universe exis … | Continue reading
My thanks to Ray for recently adding disassociated to Ye Old Blogroll, a directory of small and independent websites and blogs. Directory websites like Ray’s are invaluable when it comes to promoting the work of Indie and Small Web writers and bloggers, which is often overshadowe … | Continue reading
The Artocalypse is a subscription based community for artists on IndieWeb, created by Chris Shaw at uncountable thoughts. This a great cross-promotional idea, showcasing the work of artists, while also spreading the word about IndieWeb. I dare say some of the participating artist … | Continue reading
Maybe it’s time to start a Windows 11 is going just great website, similar to Molly White’s Web3 is Going Just Great. I say this after reading about another instance of heavy-handedness on Microsoft’s part, at Neowin: Quietly and without any announcement, the company changed Wind … | Continue reading
Whether they are a part of an on-going series of light-hearted clips by Australian cinema group Palace Cinemas, remains to be seen, but the two I’ve caught to date, on their Instagram page, have been pretty witty. The first is in response to the apparent problem of patrons nickin … | Continue reading
Gilligan’s Island was a slapstick American TV series which ran from 1964 to 1967. Despite its popularity, the show was cancelled shortly before filming of a fourth series commenced. I first saw reruns of Gilligan’s quite some time later. A number of movies, featuring most of the … | Continue reading
Less blogging about blogging: The majority of my posts are either platform explanations/justifications or organizational posts. Stuff like, “I’m moving the Archives here” or “I’ve added a ton of Links there.” Other times it’s simple announcements about me moving my blog someplace … | Continue reading
I’m in the process of migrating my OS away from Windows. I’ve been running Linux Mint, considered to be a user-friendly, Windows-like distribution of the Linux family of OS’s, on a backup device for almost two weeks now. It’s been a learning curve naturally, but so far, so good. … | Continue reading
Shares in Australian founded Mexican food restaurant Guzman Y Gomez (GYG: it’s not only an initialism, it’s a ticker code) had a stellar debut on their first day of trading on the ASX, with one market pundit describing the launch as “the hottest float on the stock market in years … | Continue reading
Kathryn Diss and Mathew Marsic, writing for ABC News: For Commander Anton, it’s difficult to imagine returning to his quiet life before the war. The 33-year-old former builder is now a battle-hardened soldier who risks his life every day, just kilometres from the Russian border. … | Continue reading
It’s a favourite around here. Because don’t we love meeting someone we connect with at first sight? But Sunday 16 June 2024, marked the thirtieth anniversary (Facebook link) of the premiere of Before Sunrise, directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke … | Continue reading
How do people who don’t know about IndieWeb, but would like to escape the web-scape funk they’re beholden to, find out about IndieWeb, asks Delyo Dobrev. This is the million dollar question. Everyone and their grandma and their dog is talking about social media’s bad influence. B … | Continue reading
Kate Dwyer, writing for Esquire: Almost everyone mentioned that debut fiction has become harder to launch. For writers, the stakes are do or die: A debut sets the bar for each of their subsequent books, so their debut advance and sales performance can follow them for the rest of … | Continue reading
Intermezzo, the fourth novel by Irish literary fiction author Sally Rooney, will be published on 24 September 2024*. The synopsis is classic Rooney: Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his th … | Continue reading
John Gruber, of Daring Fireball, presented another edition of the Talk Show, at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The live show featured usual Apple executives Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak, who were joined this year by John Giannandrea, perhaps best known … | Continue reading
As I wrote a few days ago, I’m in the process of trying out Linux operating systems, specifically Linux Mint. With the release of Windows 11, I think Microsoft has (finally) jumped the shark. Others will probably argue that happened long before Win 11 came along. They’re likely r … | Continue reading
Or when snuggled up on the sofa, say watching a movie, with your better half? I feel isolated when watching media, and it’s also much harder to snack and get cozy. This is a point — raised by Hacker News/Y Combinator member archagon — and is not something I’d thought of, in regar … | Continue reading
I’m not anti-AI (well, not too much), but when there’s a one-hundred percent reliance on their abilities, and more crucially, the judgements some AI apps make, then there’s a problem. News that (human) writers and journalists, who have never used AI-powered tools in their work, b … | Continue reading
This is a disturbing trend, vendors of software and apps, in particular those that have been around for years, suddenly introducing AI functionality. Indeed, whose idea was this? What Apple announced looks like more of the same that’s been offered lately. Help writing emails that … | Continue reading
Tim Bray: When Lauren was pregnant with a child who’s now turning 25, we purchased a comfy dark-brown leather sofa which fits our living room nicely. What with kids and relatives and employees and cats and Standards Comittees and friends and book clubs and socials, the butt-suppo … | Continue reading
I’ve read a stack of articles recently about Windows 11 (11), the successor operating system (OS) to Windows 10 (10), and am not liking a single thing I’ve seen. Microsoft (MS) will soon begin forcing users to install Windows 11, whether they like it or not. If that’s not toxic b … | Continue reading
Best I keep this brief, especially after complaining about film franchises continually rebooting and retelling the same story. Alien: Romulus (isn’t Romulus a planet in the Star Trek universe? Yeah, I thought so), is a story about some people on a spaceship, whose lives are threa … | Continue reading
Great news for fans of 2019 thriller/comedy/whodunit, Knives Out… a follow up is on the way. Daniel Craig will reprise his role as private detective Benoit Blanc, in Wake Up Dead Man, due for cinematic release sometime in 2025. Check out the teaser/trailer, though it’s more tease … | Continue reading
There has been talk of the four-day workweek for as long as I can remember. We were told about it when I started school. Yet it’s to fully, properly, officially, arrive. The work week is still, for the most part, in many places, five days: Monday to Friday. We don’t live in an ag … | Continue reading