Radzster.net

Olive Riley passed away over the weekend. She was Australia’s oldest blogger and an absolute treasure, always uplifting: never give up… and “smile, smile, smile”. A fresh and chirpy sheila at the wise old age of 108… Safe travels Olive!

I did a little post about “Elders” a while back which mentioned Olive Riley and Alan Wadell. I wonder how Alan’s doing these days?

I’ve been following Andrew Denton’s new series on ABC called “Elders”, and I must say, it’s one of the best programs I’ve seen on Australian television since I moved here in 2006…

As I am currently playing around with a few free CMS options for a personal project, one already seems to stick out because of it’s sheer “awesomeness”: SilverStripe (another reason to invade New Zealand!).

So, I thought I’d just quickly share my enthusiasm for this “greater good” piece of kit.

Having experienced several Cognitive Masochist Systems over the past few years, this one is a real breath of fresh air… and, so far, it seems to be stable and consistently spits out standards compliant code. Way-hay!

Instead of wasting time going into a lengthy review, I suggest you check it out for yourself.

A couple of weeks ago we visited Moreton Island, near Brisbane, just off the Queensland coast. During a guided tour of the island, we were told a few “yarns” about the island’s history, including one about how this beautiful island was once an Australian whale hunting station.

You might think this was during the 1800’s? Nope. In fact, the Tangalooma whaling station was run from 1952 through to 1962.

The pictures below illustrate some of the relics of the whaling industry days at Tangalooma (which is now a popular island resort, mainly due to it’s wild dolphin feeding sessions). To the credit of the resort’s management, they chose not to hide the island’s grim past, but instead reveal it to their guests with informative displays dotted throughout the property.

I found the bent harpoon particularly unsettling… Having enjoyed a close encounter with these magnificent giants of the open ocean, during a whale watching cruise off Sydney Heads last year, you realize what a truly remarkable, unforgettable and almost spiritual experience this can be (for those who don’t get seasick ;-) The humpback whales we saw that day, clearly demonstrated that whales are very intelligent and sensitive animals. So I also find it very upsetting that in recent years certain countries have increasingly been “exercising their right” to continue hunting whales, simply by exploiting various loopholes in international treaties. Their so-called “scientific”, “economic” or “cultural” reasons are absolute, bloody nonsense.

Australian blogger, Les Scammell (myradicalblogs.com), has started a “1000 blogs against whaling” campaign. Not sure what Les plans to do once he gets to that number, but he definitely has my vote! ;-)

The plaque reads:
This harpoon is a relic from the Tangalooma whaling days. The shaft of the harpoon was often bent over from the impact of the strike, and the struggle of the wounded animal.

The plaque reads:
Flensing Deck - The concrete structure before you is the remnants of the flensing deck of the Tangalooma whaling station. This was the processing area for the humpback whales (Megapetera Novaeangliae), captured for their by products such as oil. The Tangalooma whaling station operated between 1952 and 1962, where a total of 6277 humpbacks and one blue whale were caught for processing. Due to the dramatic reduction in the east coast humpback population, 68 of the 660 whale quota for the season 1962 were caught and for economic reasons the whaling station closed.

Get involved and help stop whaling.

I was recently asked why I “fail” to use meaningful/useful category labels on this blog.

Well, because this is a personal blog with no commercial intent whatsoever, and I happen to have a broad spectrum of interests, so I would have to create dozens of categories, which would not only take up too much space on the page, but which would ultimately also become less user friendly.

I do tag all the posts with meaningful keywords and phrases, so I figured, why not “gently nudge” readers to use the search feature instead? I thought I had a “KISS” excuse… Obviously not. Sorry folks. Not about to change this just yet (if ever).

I’m also still cleaning up the non-standards/non-semantic code of this free and beautifully designed WordPress theme (thank you Elena!), so bear with me.

Feel free to spout your venomous comments here.
I actually look forward to it. ;-)
Could prove very interesting…

I had an interesting wayfinding experience the other day. Using Nokia Maps on my “trusty” Nokia N95 GPS enabled smart phone, I tried to find my way to an important meeting somewhere in the Sydney harbour area.

From my, “ground level” perspective, I seemed to count more piers along the way than were visible on the “birds-eye view” Nokia Maps. And of course, to make things even more interesting, some missing street names and numbers, and… my GPS gizmo also seemed to think I was swimming towards my destination at times… it just all didn’t add up.

So, what to do if technology fails you? Ask a person for help!

Good thing I left early and was not late for my appointment. So, it did not turn into a frustrating wayfinding fiasco but rather a funny high-tech fumble.