vobiblog

While technically I am not on my holiday yet, due to my father being sick, I have had to jet down to Melbourne for a few days before I head off to Morocco. Despite being warned about writing in the public domain, I thought I would give it a go again to see if I could be responsible.

Travelling to Melbourne is usally uneventful. I catch the train to the airport, usually a little early so I can get a pint or two into me before getting on the plane, where a few tinnies usually follow. Tonight was the same, the plane was on time, denying me the opportunity to get really flogged. However, it was surrieal, both in the lounge and on the plane, the news was all about Air France flight 447. Shocking images, a 3d image of a plane going through turbulence, a plane getting struck by lightening, montages of other Airbus A330′s.  Once apon a time is was considered verboten to talk about plane crashes in an airport or while actually flying. Now it is broadcast directly to your own personal video screen in your seat.

Rationally, it doesn’t bother me. Flying is still by far the safest form of transport. Planes don’t just fall out of the sky. It is usually a number of cascading failures that cause a fatal crash like this. Hell, even Emirates managed to undercalculate the weight of a A340 (same airline and model as I am flying with on Sunday) by 100 tons, resulting in a very slow take off, running off the end of the runway taking out the approach lighting and ILS antenna with them and still managed to bring the plane down safely.
My heart goes out to the relatives and friends of the victims of AF447.  I wish I could say this would be the last time that something like this happens. My gut feeling is that it wont be the case. Airlines are burning money, getting lazy, we could see air travel become dangerous again, like it was in the first half of the 20th century. The world may just get bigger again.

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 19x40mm 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