vobiblog

From ABC News:

Senator Boswell says he can not explain why the Coalition is performing poorly in the opinion polls.
Five days out from the election, the polls are still predicting a Labor win, as they have done for months.
He says Australia is enjoying prosperous times and he does not understand why the polls are not reacting.
“I would have thought we’d deserved to get out and win this election,” he said.

The fact that he doesn’t know why he, and the rest of his mates are about to get tossed out on the asses suggests that they really are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges we are facing.

As an architecture student, I have a lot of large format work that I have to store. My personal philosophy is that no one should be allowed to purchase a steel plasts chest until they actually own a house and don’t have to move. However, the current system of storing plans in mailing tubes and folded up anywhere they fit is clearly not working. Enter my latest invention, the the home made ‘plans painting’.

What first appears to be a piece of average modern art (or a gun cabinet), opens into a drawer for storing A0 artwork. A few lengths of 19×40mm pine, a sheet of 3mm ply, two hinges and a latch is all it takes.

Some of you may noticed that my blog is now carrying advertising. Rest assured that it is not the desperate grab for cash that it make first look like.

For a long time now, I have been interested in alternative media and Internet publishing. In general, there are three ways you can do this:

1. Build up enough content and hope that people will pay some subscription fee (or donation)
2. Rely on advertising revenue, be it contextual ads or intrusive flashing banner ads
3. Fund it yourself and do it as a hobby

I have always felt that banner ads are a waste of time for both the content provider and the advertiser. They are annoying, intrusive and rarely applicable to the viewer. For example, I am on rsvp.com.au. They have gathered detail information about me through the process of creating a profile. Despite this, I am constantly bombarded with banner ads for products aimed at women.

A few years ago, Google turned the Internet advertising market up on its head by providing context based, text only advertising. In theory, the ads displayed here, will be relevant to the content I write. It sounds like a good idea, but I have no first hand experience so see if it does actually work in this situation. The way the system allocates advertising to my site is totally hands off. That is, I have little control over what ads are displayed on my site and they are certainly not endorsed by me. At the same time, advertisers have no control over what I write on my site. This satisfies many ethical dilemmas that can arise when advertising and content are combined.
For the next few months at least, my blog will continue to carry advertising. This this time I will attempt to post regularly on non personal issues to see if it actually lifts the number of views my site receives each month currently it is in the order of 500 unique visits. If it actually generates some income, that’s great, I can spend more time writing and less time working. If not, at least I will no that there is no money to be made out of independent blogs.

Apparently there is a “major events weekend” on the 2nd and 3rd of December. The sign on the Victoria Bridge advises us to use public transport. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside… doesn’t it???? Just remember, people are trying to use fucking public fucking transport, but over 200 people every day in Brisbane are greeted every morning on their commute to work by the message “Sorry, Bus Full”.

Holidays starting soon. More angry blogs to follow

I went to log into IRC tonight…

ned@power:~$ bitchx Vobiscum brisbane.oz.org
bash: bitchx: command not found

In the 4 months I have had this computer, I haven’t tried to log on to IRC. Who would have thunk it.