mykrocosm

I live 5 minutes from the city centre, and my work is another 5 minutes on the other side. So every morning I plunge my little car into the converging torrent of vehicles and get swept along on the tide up Goodwood Road into the city of Adelaide, jostled into West Terrace and spat out onto Port Road on the other side of the city. You can see my little journey by clicking on the thumbnail to the right (thanks, Google!).

Normally I leave the house at 7:40am when the traffic level is somewhat reasonable and the trip takes about 15 minutes. If I’m even a few minutes later than this (say… about as long as it takes to find a pair of clean undies), the volume of traffic explodes and the roads are clogged, easily adding up to 10 minutes to my time

Today for some reason I bypassed the whole “snooze through the alarm” routine and left the house at 7:30am. The difference was like night and day. Empty roads, front row at the lights, a very pleasant drive indeed. And the trip took about 12 minutes!

There’s actually about 3 or 4 different routes I can take. I’m thinking about doing a time-of-day vs distance vs duration study. I get so bored in the car sometimes.

So, this new technology called podcasting is taking off at the moment. It’s kind of like blogging, but with audio files. It allows you to operate as a one-man radio station just spewing forth all these audio segments containing interviews, monologues and other content. We’re seeing enormous amounts of opinion, editorial and news reporting now being conveyed on this new medium.

Some people rave about it. Personally, I hate it. I hope it’s a passing fad. Obviously I’m a little biased, but I dread the thought of an audio-driven internet.

It’s interesting how technology tends to work alternatively against and then for hearing impaired people. First there were books (for), then phones (against) then teletypewriters to use on the phone system (for). Then there was tv (against) and then tv captioning (for). VHS videos (against) and then DVDs (for). Fast forward to 2005 :

- 90% of all TV content is subtitled
- 95% of movie DVDs contain subtitles
- Some new releases can be seen with captions at the cinema
- Text-based internet provides all the news and social commentary you could want

In all honestly, it’s not a bad time to be deaf. But now this podcasting thing. If every journalist and his dog starts podcasting, where does that leave me? Confined to the static, stale waters of the internet, looking on as all the trendy hip crowd flock to the podcast channels to discuss the latest happenings.

All is not lost though. Perhaps the rise of audio will finally give those speech-to-text recognition engines a kick up the bum. They’ve been languishing behind the curve for more than a decade. My one hope is that they may be the (for) to podcasting’s (against).

Four of us took a spin down at Kart Mania this afternoon. Cost us $14.50 each for 15 laps, though Andrew and I managed to roar through 20 laps by the end. Andrew got off to a flying start and won easily, though in my crazed efforts to catch him I managed the fastest lap of 22.48 seconds, exactly half a second clear of his best!

It was insane, exhilarating fun, but it seemed over all too soon. The car’s steering felt extraordinarily light driving home. Now I have this vague, disquieting sense of an itch wanting to be scratched. The “need for speed” … it’s real.

Man, what a rush that was!

Went bowling with some friends yesterday.

Now in addition to the normal sights and sounds of a ten-pin bowling alley, there was a kids party alongside us with some twenty or so screaming kids all running around, flashing lights and disco music. Would you take your newborn baby to a place like that? I have to admit, I probably wouldn’t have. But my friends did, and you know what? The sight of 6 week old baby Chloe fast asleep in the midst of all that chaos is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.

Bronwen explained her philosophy to me. They don’t tiptoe around the house. They talk in normal voices and the TV is always on. Not to mention the 9 month old puppy barking in the backyard. By introducing the child to a range of noisy situations early on the startle reflex is lessened, the child is less highly strung and the parents are empowered to live a much more normal life.

I was fascinated by this approach because it’s in such stark contrast to another couple I know. Their toddler is kept swaddled in a deathly quiet house with very little socialising and little interaction with the outside world. The mother cannot bring herself to part from the child, so there are no babysitters and no parents’ time alone. You can almost imagine the kind of needy, neurotic child that might result from growing up in this environment.

It’s been said that the best way to learn things is by making the mistakes yourself. While I’m some way from producing little offspring myself, I’m determined in the meantime to figure out as much as I can from the experiences of others !

It seems the coverage is still a little patchy even in areas which would be considered metropolitian … there’s not much to look at once you go north of Grand Junction Road. That’s what, 30% of Adelaide’s population? Also I’d love to see some better resolutions of the country areas, though I imagine this will all come with time.

Still, it’s great to have Australian coverage this (relatively) quickly and the pre-fetch scrolling is pretty damn impressive! I’m looking forward to lots of cool “moogling” in the future

Google Maps has hit Australia! A few of my favourite places :

Adelaide city centre, South Australia
My House, Adelaide, South Australia (it’s there.. somewhere!)
Clipsal Head Office, Adelaide, South Australia (Check out the roof sign!)
Mount Gambier, South Australia
Glenelg, South Australia (Magic Mountain lives!)
Uluru, Northern Territory

A 4.9 quake rocks northern Japan today… would that be about the effect you’d get from an 850-whale tail slam?

A friend from work runs a few websites, and we share the same host. One of his sites, the UI Hall of Shame got posted to slashdot overnight! Apparently good ol’ Quadrahosting Jim was up at 3am saving the servers - his first ever slashdotting. Congrats Jim, you’re in the Major League of Webhosters now!

And the person who submitted the post? Another colleague of ours, who is still cackling evilly.

Went to visit little Joshua and his Mum and Dad in hospital today. I even got to hold him for quite some time. JR is such a handsome little boy, I definitely can see some of the family likeness in there Feisty little fellow too - he’s already scratched his own face a couple of times and has to be kept bundled up in a blanket. It’s amazing the strength in those little limbs though, he always manages to wriggle a hand free to suck on.

He’s already got himself a little Port Power guernsey and football for when he gets a little older. All three are doing well and relieved that the first nine months is over. Still got a big job ahead of them though!

The next generation has arrived! My eldest cousin Matthew and his lovely wife Julitta had a son this morning, Joshua Ryan. Welcome to the clan, Josh!

So, I’m an uncle. Sort of. Okay, not really. Technically, little JR is my first cousin once removed, according to this neat diagram.

Still, it’s pretty damn awesome