| Bit of an update on Daniel's life in Melbs |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|11:52 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home (Northcote) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  peaceful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | da radio...sounds like Hunters and Collectors | ] |
The dot points:
-Ended up not doing the shared house thing, instead I'm renting a lovely little flat in Northcote with city views...ok, glimpses
-RMIT contract went well and has now finished. I'm doing full-time casual youth work at the moment, shifts at various times of the day and night. I'm doing the youth work thing because it is a good match for...
-Back on the PhD train :) I'm using all the minimum-quality maximum-return-for-effort tricks I learn running a business, and I'm slowly but surely pulling together the thesis. Not thinking of it as research any more, 'cos I've done all that, just as writing-up a report. Maybe full draft by the end of the year, we'll see, that's what I'm playing for
-Still blissed-out to be in Melbourne, this city rocks
-It's winter, so I'm in my usual 'down' period in terms of energy and sociability. Still happy, just things are generally much more effort
-My current creative project (I've always got one on the go) is actually my flat. I'm creating it as a work of art - more about that in a subsequent post in a bit
-I feel like I'm giving myself the space this year to do something that I've never really done before, which is just 'living' |
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| Opera Mini browser for phones |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|04:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Work | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Um, The Ashes in the background | ] |
Quick note for anyone using the Nokia 5800 (which I highly recommend) - get the browser Opera Mini as a supplement to the built-in browser. I've found the built-in one is often fine, but on some sites (e.g. Livejournal, gmail) it works on wireless but not on 3G whereas Opera works always. It doesn't do Flash as well as the built-in browser, though. Feel free to fire any 5800 tech support questions at me - Dan |
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| iiBorg |
[Jun. 21st, 2009|08:46 pm] |
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I'm about to sign up for iiNet naked DSL over in Melbourne - do any of you iiBorgers get any, like, advantage from signing someone up, or should I just click 'buy now' on the website? Dan :) |
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| I rule |
[Jun. 9th, 2009|05:09 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Avoca | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  jubilant | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 'Can you read my mind' by The Killers (I think) (in my head) | ] |
I just did an ENTIRE job application for a fairly serious Vic government job in 24 minutes beginning to end!
Including personalising resume, addressing seven selection criteria, and creating an account on their 'submit jobs' site. There was a certain amount of cut and paste action ;) But I wrote two of the criteria from scratch. All that sh*t would once have taken me 12 hours!
Damn public holidays - I was caught by the old 'it feels like Monday and this job isn't due until Tuesday' phenomenon...until 4:34pm when I suddenly realised it was Tuesday and I had 25 minutes to do the deed.
Ok, now to do something with the adrenaline. |
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| ...and the result in the referendum on accursed daylight saving in West Australia is... |
[May. 18th, 2009|09:11 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | home | ] |
| [ | music |
| | skunkhour 'up to our necks in it' (s&m remix) | ] |
omg I'm actually really excited about this one - I don't know the result yet, and I hate daylight saving with a passion - and I have a simple faith in the ability of West Australian voters to go "NO! We don't want change!". Which for once counts in my favour.
So, I'm firing up the website of the one WA newspaper, The West Australian - a paper so execrable it makes, um, something which is sht look not sht...and see what it says...
Hmm, doesn't seem to have a result. That's about standard. Too many syllables.
Ok, take two, let's look at the ABC site...
OMG they have a headline "NO campaign wins through to end daylight saving in WA" - honey to my ears and balm to my soul :) Apparently a little over 55% of voters voted NO.
This is, by the way, the 4th referendum on daylight saving in WA since 1975 - they've all been 'no' results, and this is the biggest so far. 1975 was 53.7% no, 1984 was 54.4% no, and 1992 (which I voted in) was 53.1% no. The WA Premier reckons that it should probably not be reconsidered for another 20 years or so. More balm to my ears.
We've just finished the 3rd year of an enforced 3 year trial of daylight saving, by the way, so you can't say it was a blind vote :) |
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| Daniel's housewarming :) Sat 16 May, 6pm onwards... |
[May. 8th, 2009|06:55 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | excited | ] |
| [ | music |
| | some Jose Gonzales song (in my head)...called 'Heartbeats' now playing ;) | ] |
I'm delighted to report that I've found a place to live :) It meets all the requirements I set out in proper manifestation style 6 months ago in Perth, including a view of the city.
So, to celebrate, I'm having a HOUSEWARMING!!
Saturday 16th May, 6pm until late
Bring a cushion to sit on (if pos) (and leave it behind if you wanna give a prezzie)
People are probably fine to drop in earlier in the arvo, but check in beforehand.
BYO whatever you want, I imagine there'll be a basic stock of food and booze around.
It's totally fine to bring offspring along, but there's no specific kid-space or whatever.
As I'm of the school of thought that says a housewarming is something you have as soon as you move in to get a good vibe about the place (rather than, say, 6 months after you move in as a demonstration of how together your place is and how grown up you are ;) there's not going to be much furniture. Consequently, it's probably best to bring a cushion to sit on, and if you'd like to make a contribution to the house then you could leave your cushion behind...
Dan xx |
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| the rhythm of research |
[May. 7th, 2009|04:17 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | RMIT | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
I occasionally muse about the rhythm of the research process. It's particularly present for me at the moment with my research assistant job at RMIT (see ** below for a quick summary of what I'm up to).
As part of this, I'm required - in the classic research assistant idiom - to produce (quickly) a report looking at all the places in the world that are doing similar things, what the state of play is, are there any effective competitors etc. and somehow summarise all of this into a 30 second grab that my professor can use to sell this project to the head of school.
So off I trawl...
I hold that green-fields research goes through a rhythm of 4 stages:
IGNORANCE
OVERWHELM
PATTERNS
SYNTHESIS
At first you know so little [IGNORANCE] about the topic that you don't even know which search terms to use. You occasionally get a random hit, and you feel nice and comfy because clearly there's not going to be much work for you to do.
Then you get the hang of the field you've walked in to, and you realise that most of the planet has spent the last 50 years apparently doing nothing except writing [OVERWHELM] about this topic. You've no idea how to separate the important stuff from the peripheral, or even to separate the field you're supposed to be researching from all the neighboring fields that use similar words. This is the Long Night of the Soul of Research. It's the ability to push through this phase that separates a researcher from...well, from something else. Probably something pejorative.
If you push through this, eventually you begin to see the same sources [PATTERNS] showing up. If you've kept good notes, that is, and maintained links etc. (i.e. done research good). You realise that 20,000 of the hits are actually all pointing back to the one conference - or even the one conference paper. You realise that most of the articles are from a particular discipline which isn't relevant to your research. Your buttocks begin to unclench a little as you realise that without knowing you've passed the hump, and it's just summarising and attitude from here on in. "Why 'attitude'?" I hear you say? Well, glad you asked...
Finally, you do a bit of root-cause analysis - you figure out who's referencing who, and who are the big names and organisations. Then [SYNTHESIS] I find it best to puff up your chest and gird your loins and do a ridiculous but invariably successful thing - you go and see the person who commissioned the research and you throw out an unsupportably broad and sketchy executive summary of the field and have a go at defending it. Don't even take along your notes. Don't worry that you've forgotten most of the names.
If you've done the preceding stages well, you'll amaze yourself with how much sense your summary makes. And they are so grateful to get some shape around the project that they don't mind if the shape is faintly reminiscent of pears. This firstly stops you from going off down the wrong path, and it also saves you from the trap of trying to get it all too detailed or too right. It will also pull out of your boss those remaining leads that they'd forgotten to mention in the first briefing. Also, it means that the report you write is far lower stakes, because you're just putting flesh what you've already sketched out. Oh, and it makes you look smokingly good at your job.
So, there you have it, the rhythm of research a la Daniel.
I've just done the 'throw out an unsupportably broad summary' thing to my boss. Went well. I look smokingly good.
** It's quite an interesting project I'm involved with - looking at how art can directly assist communities cope with and address climate change, particularly in the areas of psychological resiliance; design principles; sustainable land-use; and awareness and minimisation of resource use. [Tiki, this is what I mentioned I wanted to talk to you about the other night] |
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| Interwebs in Melbourne? |
[May. 6th, 2009|08:10 pm] |
I'm wanting to get internet at home. Which is now in Melbourne, of course. Can anyone recommend a good provider/plan for home broadband? I have *no* interest in having a landline phone, just want fast internet and a fairly decent limit (>20G). Cheers, Dan
Note to my iiBorg friends: I'm currently going through the iiUseful process, I'll let you know if the website's helpful... xx |
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| just 'cos I thought you all should know... |
[Apr. 22nd, 2009|12:01 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | RMIT (new work) | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | bloody '6 months in a leaky boat' stuck in my head | ] |
Went to a great Tibetan restaurant in Northcote last night - the one on High St, just up from the corner of Separation St. Great food, great vibe, cheap wine. It's my new favourite place.
Of course, I also had some very spicy dishes there, and today I've got a touch of the Dalai Lama's revenge ;) Now you know. |
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| The luxury of truth |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|07:54 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Avoca | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thoughtful | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 'Music is Crap' by Custard (in my head) | ] |
I think that the greatest privilege I tend to squander is the ability to tell the truth with little consequence.
In many places and times in the world (including, of course, parts of Oz - don't get me wrong: I'm being rhapsodical, not ...-centric)...um, where was I...yes, in many parts of the world telling the truth will get you killed, raped, imprisoned, beaten, excluded. Telling the truth about your sexuality, your political persuasion, your religious opinions, your ethnicity, your family line, your nationality, and so on.
In my life, the worst consequence that will befall me from telling the truth about anything is that I may feel a little embarrassed.
Now don't get me wrong, embarrassment is unpleasant, but in comparison it doesn't stack up. And yet I find myself drawn to ignoring this privilege to tell the truth in the most trivial of circumstances. For instance, why I was 2 minutes late, or whether I really want to go to x with y, or...you get the idea.
As the years pass, I'm getting better at telling the truth. Rigorously, courageously, luxuriously.
Still aways to go, though. |
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| Nokia 5800 |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|05:20 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | ecstatic | ] |
I'll do a longer post on this soon, but the brief version is that I've got the new Nokia touchscreen phone, the 5800.
I've had it a week, and in summary so far it's the best piece of tech I've ever got my hand on.
You should stop whatever you're doing right now and go and buy one.
Well, as long as you look for the same things in a piece of tech that I do ;) As I say, I'll shortly do a longer post.
But if you've got any questions about it, I can almost certainly answer them :)
Dan |
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| Quick update on Daniel's life :) |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|12:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
Heya all, haven't been posting much...or phoning people...or emailing...or IM-ing...etc...but unfortunately I am a terrible correspondent.
So, here's some quick updates:
-I've found a place to live, a shared place in Carlton, just off Lygon street. Moving in on Monday
-Started my new job yesterday, a 3 month Research Assistant gig at RMIT, very interesting project
-Had the long weekend at the ConFest 'alternative lifestyles' festival up in NSW. Was superb, and I spent almost the entire time naked
-Loving Melbourne
-Not having a settled place to live has been tough
-Have started a men's group, which is going well
-Am doing some PhD
-Not running at all, but going to get back into that when I have a settled base, which will be really good
-Coffee is my friend
Love, Daniel |
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| Does anyone know about unlocked phones and 3 SIMs and GPS and stuff? |
[Apr. 5th, 2009|07:38 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Kirmish's | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  confused | ] |
Quick call for any tech knowledge as I'm woefully under informed on this one.
- I've got a '3' phone account. I'm going to buy, outright, an unlocked Nokia 5800. I know that the SIM will work in the phone as it's 3G and supports their USIM thingie, which is to say I know it will work for phone calls.
What I want to know is 2 things:
- First, given that the 5800 has GPS, how does phone GPS work? Is it linked to the phone service provider? Does it need to download things from the internet? Or will the phone GPS work whether it's got a SIM card in or not?
- Second, will I be able to connect to the web? Will the 5800 just be able to use SIM info to connect, or do I have to have all the special 'Planet 3' software loaded to access the web, download email etc. |
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| Obama's speech |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|12:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | jubilant | ] |
Just watched Obama's acceptance speech as president - kinda awesome :) My favourite bit:
"As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers [sic?], faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man [sic], a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake." |
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| Timezone success! |
[Jan. 21st, 2009|12:22 am] |
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
It's a good thing I get off on problem solving. The solution, in the end, was to delete all calendar items from Outlook, change the timezone on the PC and out the Palm device to Melbourne time, then do a sync where the Palm device overwrites the Outlook calendar. That worked! :) Needless to say it wasn't anything like as simple as that sounds.
So, overall, I didn't manage to migrate to iCal, but I do have Outlook working in the right time zone.
I'm going to call that a success. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 20th, 2009|09:56 pm] |
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Dum de dum, so I've got the Outlook - palm pilot thing working again. Now trying to get Outlook to change everything to Melbourne timezone. Currently I've changed the palm time zone to Melbourne, deleted all in the Outlook calendar, changed the system time of the PC, and am now doing a sync with palmie where the palmie overwrites the outlook calendar. You never know, might work. |
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| palm pilot fail |
[Jan. 20th, 2009|02:39 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | under a fan | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | some Matchbox 20 song | ] |
Hmm, I've hit a bit of an impasse in transferring from Outlook to iCal. It seems (after many, many hours of problem solving) that my calendar file is too large to be transferred from iCal to the palm pilot via iSync. This is a palm problem not an iSync problem.
However, it was working with Outlook, which seems to suggest that it's a palm-for-mac problem.
I *could* just purge a load of events from my calendar, but I want to keep them if I can.
Unless I have any attacks of the clevers in the next few mins I'm going to have to abandon the attempt, wipe the palm, and re-sync it with the windows-outlook side of life again, and see if that works ;) |
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| tech stuff |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|04:23 pm] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Daniel's pad | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | accomplished | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 'Big Hard Sun' by Eddie Vetter (in my head) | ] |
...bought to you by new, spammy Dan...
I haz a new domain name :) *little domain name happy dance*
I think I might create a MobileMe account (a Mac thing) and host it there, as they claim to be able to do that.
Also on the calendar tech stuff from the other day, I've decided to switch back to iCal from Outlook and 'brute force' convert the 9,000-odd calendar events into Melbourne time.
So *calculates* it should take me...let's see...to convert over to iCal and get it all working then get it working with my palm pilot...then sync it all with a new MobileMe thing...hmm...see you all in 2 days I guess... |
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| quick Melbs update |
[Jan. 19th, 2009|11:36 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Daniel's pad | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
| [ | music |
| | 'Doves Cry' by Prince (on hold music) | ] |
Loving being here :)
Had a great interview for a youth work job this morning, and registered with an admin temp agency - if no news within a couple of days I guess it's stacking shelves or something.
Various flats available for rent but not the perfect one yet.
Various generous people accommodating me.
Great catching up with all the cool people this side of the desert.
The fact that I don't have to add 2 hrs to the timezone for most phone calls is weirding me out.
*Loving* having my car as well as my motorbike.
If anyone's got a job going, let me know - I've got all sorts of talents.
If anyone's looking for a housemate in the Northcote area, I'm probably interested in shared houses for a bit until I find a place by myself.
Dan |
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