Over the falls

We spent New Years in time honored family tradition, on the beach under a glorious clear sky, with the Western Outer Orion Arm of the Milky Way luminous and scattered above the warm summer waves. This year, I've decided to focus on production rather than on consumption. If that sounds a bit odd, well, perhaps it is. It seems to me that in this coming decade, the massive increase in information availability, brought to me through the internet - through Facebook, and Twitter, and mainly through a never ending supply of smart, insightful and amusing humans to provide me with content, results in me feeling obligated to consume it all. That I should read each heartfelt status update, and follow each interesting link. I should upvote salient points of view, demote and chastise those less pleasant. I should "Like" things I read, (Except when the tone of the status update indicates that "liking" would be inappropriate: "Bob was abused as a child - 12 people like ...

The cockroach, like all creatures, is a miracle of evolution and adaptation. It's unique segmented body design, and it's hardiness and durability are legendary among popular parlance. It can survive in the most trying circumstances, subsist on almost nothing and thrive on on the most meagre fare. But there is one thing that it hasn't yet adapted to - a perfectly flat, even surface. Such a thing has not existed for the vast majority of the cockroaches millions of ancestors, and the modern day cockroach is now frequently found adventuring across such surfaces, in the corners of bathrooms and under microwave ovens all over the world. The problem with flat, even surfaces only becomes apparent to the cockroach when it is unfortunate enough to capsize, and land on it's back. Its method for righting itself is to wave it's legs and antennae wildly, in an effort to grab a hold of the leaf litter, sticks or grass of its habitat, and using the unevenness of the ground, get e...

So, I’m Momo. What? Why’s it say “So, I’m Momo?” What? What are you doing Dad? (laughs) Dad, just go back, back, back back. Delete, Delete – Dad! – You’re not meant to be writing this, Dad. Dad! Dad!! Back –uh – Do back! (frowns) (looks sad, but says nothing) Why don’t you just delete all that? And THEN we can do the story – if you delete it all. Make all the letters go away! Why not Dad? You’re just doing random stuff. This isn’t the story.

I found myself, standing in the entrance to a massive building, being guided by an unknown force that was far too big for me to resist or even to question. As we herded into the alcove, I could see up ahead, an ascending escalator with people riding smoothly up one side, and down the other. Suspended in mid air above the escalator, were 10 different coloured gaseous squares, like a series of lasers swirling through a mist, all at head height. I watched as people boarded the escalator, and rose up, their heads each passing through these strange coloured zones. Semi-reluctantly, I boarded the escalator, aware of the endless jostling queue behind and in front of me. Easing my way up to the first zone, I felt it pass smoothly over my face. It felt strange, though not unpleasant - like that fuzziness that you feel when you wake too early in the morning. I moved out of the zone, leaving the feeling behind. As I continued the ride up to the top, passing through each of the different coloured ...

Squatting down on the cement pathway, huddled amidst the short shadows of the passers-by, is a small child. As people stir past him, ambling on their daily chores, he watches them pass intently. Periodically, he stiffens his back, puffs out his chest, and yells. “MANSPRAY!” The locals ignore him easily, continuing their amiable conversations as they proceed. Most are wearing bilims around their heads or shoulders. A woman carries a small baby nestled in her woven string bag – others are full of lime pots, food and cigarettes. The sidewalk is a deep rusty orange, the colour of the Beetelnut tainted streams of spit that spurt unexpectedly from the mouths of those who crowd into it. The oppressive humidity seems to lift a little in the middle of the day, to be replaced by the blazing heat of the sun. “MANSPRAY!” I have always had trouble intentionally ignoring people. I have a kind of universal respect for every human, which seems to include at a minimum that I will genuinely listen to a...

The late morning sun lights up the slats of the wooden blinds, casting striped shadows across the floor of the room. The winter solstice just passed, and the wind behind the pane of glass shuffles the trees slightly, as if trying to find a more comfortable position to settle down in for the coming day. Seated cross legged on the bed, typing these words into a computer, is Gordon Taylor. He yawns, stretches his toes and removes the blue hood from his head. What kind of a story is he planning to tell you? In truth, he doesn't know himself. He is inspired to begin writing only because he loves the way words sound when they are describing things, the way they can conjure a picture of reality using the abstract constructions of letters and phrases. In truth, such a notion is not the best reason to begin to write. The best reason to write is to share a tale, to amaze, affront, astound and challenge the reader (that's you). Gordon would dearly like to be able to construct such a tale...

Dark Galaxy was a web based strategy game that in early 2002 became a huge time sink at the software company I was working for. I can't actually remember the point of it, or how the whole thing worked. But while shuffling through some old files, I stumbled upon this story that I had written about it. Tosh re-lit the lantern as the rest of the workers filed into the small portable kitchen. “Another turn’s work completed” “Yeah- I reckon that harvest should keep ‘em going for a while” Tosh was tired. Tired of farming. The genetically enhanced super food crops would soon be ready for more harvesting in another turn – then what? Off they’d go again… More harvesting, more carrying, more trudging through dirt. The food would be loaded onto the giant robocarrier that would take it off to the holding cache. I hope those folk in the colony appreciate what we do for them, Tosh thought, distastefully. The lantern cast eerie shadows on the scraggly beards of the workers as they took off th...

This post is in honour of my father's twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I couldn't be there in person this year, but I was there in spirit. And as one of those solemn and awkward blonde kids, I hope this story will give you some insight into how much that day meant to me, as well as to you both. Herb and Ailsa swam towards their summer cove, for what seemed to Herb like the thousandth time. The morning sky was a pale grey as Herb idly broached the surface, taking a quick breath before returning to his spouse. "I still think we should have stayed home. The water isn't any warmer here." "Yes, Dear", Ailsa said, almost automatically. "And you know, Hank was going to take us out to visit that new wreck he found. I wanted to see that..." "I know Dear. It will still be there when we return, I'm sure" Herb opened his beak as if he was about to speak, and then thought the better of it. They swam on together in silence. The summer cove ha...

In a crowded hotel room, hastily assembled, the desks arranged in a U shape. Business people are seated sedately, all wearing collared shirts, some with ties, listening to a discussion about the grant funding capacity of the Australan Government in Papua New Guinea, and the benefits to the state of Queensland. Lame jokes elicit predictable polite courtesy laughter. The Queensland Treasurer, a young politician looks bored and fidgets idly with his pen. It's not surprising. The topic bores us all, and I am forced to write down what I see in order to give the appearance that I am taking notes. I look up and nod periodically, as if to say "Yes, that's a good point" or occasionally with a furrowed brow - "I don't know about that..." Nobody notices. Secretly, everyone's mind is wandering. The Asian gentleman to my right is fighting sleep- his eyelids conspiring against his desire to be seen to do the right thing in this artificial social envionment. "...

Apparently web based social services need to be named after animal noises. We have Twitter and now Buzz, so that's the birds and the bees covered. Hopefully Microsoft or Yahoo can get in on the act with something with a bit more grunt - Oink! Or "Moo" perhaps... Seriously though, a few things struck me about Buzz that I wanted to share. Google has, via gmail, been collecting a lot of my social capital. It knows who I talk to most, and presumably at least semantically, what I talk about with whom. In the back of my mind, I was vaguely aware that this was going on, but Google's "don't be evil" mantra kind of reassured me that this data wouldn't be exploited. With the launch of Buzz, it becomes apparent precisely the scope and scale of this profile mining excerise that Gmail has been. As a heavy Gmail user, buzz came pre-configured with all my friends, and had 75 interesting posts from them, at launch. Compare this with Google Wave, which launched with ...

Late last night I picked up my Ukulele, where it had been lying neglected in the corner of the office, under a small whiteboard covered in work scribble. And as I was reading the work scribble, and feeling quite overwhelmed by all the work I have to do, I absentmindedly played this little diddly - which I decided sounded kind of like it should be a ringtone - so I turned it into one. If you have an iPhone, you can download it here - just drag it to your ringtones directory in iTunes, and it will show up on your phone when you next sync.

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold - William Carlos Williams

A friend of mine died today. He wasn't a particularly close friend, or even someone I had spent a long time with. He was a work colleague - we'd worked together at TOWER Software. To Me, Keith was a bit of an enigma - a records manager, ex military, he was organized and careful in his approach to his work. I could always be sure that when I needed a stapler, or sticky tape, that I could find it easily at Keith's desk. When the cancer took hold of him, his desk was often empty. (This made the task of sneaking paperclips much less pleasant. ) Keith's specialty was the JITC (Joint Interoperability Tactical Command) Certification process . If that sounds boring, well, just wait - it gets way more detailed. The US Defense force certifies Record Keeping solutions to ensure that they comply with their strict policy of retention and control. This process is immensely complicated - it requires compliance with literally thousands of different rules and regulations. Because it is ...

This Financial Crisis on Wall Street thing started me thinking. Since we arrived in the US, I've been contemplating how strange it is that America seems more concerned with money than it does with people. And now, with a trillion dollars already handed out to high finance, and discussions about even more massive handouts, well - it's pretty clear who America loves the most. For me to send my children to University here in the US will cost me about half a million dollars, assuming average current College prices. If I get sick, say with an expensive disease like cancer, I could be easily looking at 300,000 dollars a year in treatment costs . When it comes to preserving my personal health, or my ability to contribute to society, the United States wants to contribute absolutely nothing. And yet, the US Government will spend trillions of dollars - that's over a thousand billion dollars resuscitating businesses that have effectively done stupid, bad things . The kind of thing t...

I sit, pensively leaning over my keyboard, stilled for the first time in an hour. The lilting piano music had caught part of my conscience. I stare out the window at the Virginia sunshine, fading in the afternoon. The green, filtered light falls dappled onto the lawn between me and the dogwood tree at the gate. An elderly gentleman pedals along James street, wearing a blue denim hat and a white T-shirt. Somewhere, a fanfare announces the advent of something. Some kind of thought dances elusively as I stare abjectly into the world. And then it hits me. That the time spent is gone. That great intentions and potential are worthless. The future is also worthless. Green light is reflected from the trees in an instant. I think about it now.

I haven't seriously written anything here forever. I was re-reading some old posts, and realising that I really liked reading them. So, in the interests of posterity... Living in America for the last two years has been a wonderful adventure. It's been strange, and entertaining, and frustrating and all the things that life probably should be, if you're trying to make a decent go of it. But, times change, and the lure of Australia is calling us back across the Pacific. So, me and the family are going to pull up stumps and head on home in October. (I still haven't figured out baseball. ) This brings a huge amount of stress, and excitement, and chaotic planning, and other things that life probably should be, if you're trying to make a decent go of it. I feel like I have two different todo lists - one for work and one for home. And when I look at each of them, I think - yeah, I can do that in two and a half months. The trouble is, there's two of them... Cognitive Bi...

You know how it is - You're busy working , trying to get your startup to beta. Then Little Headed Simon pops up and posts you some link he saw on boing boing. And then he says that the link isn't really that interesting, but the way he misread the headline was actually much more interesting. So then you say - "you should make a game out of that..." Yeah, yeah I know- that's like every other day, right? Except that this time, He actually did. LHS - you are seven different coloured lasers of awesome. My highest score is 2.

Here's a first. This post has a soundtrack. The reason this post has a soundtrack, is because this mp3 is a recording of the music I was playing with my band on the weekend, when I came to this realization. And somewhere in the middle of a somewhat self-indulgent but very satisfying twelve-eight blues progression, this weird notion of immediacy hit me. So, I thought I'd attempt to share it. Press play, if you didn't already, and see if you can follow me on this one... The realization comes from this notion that when you're playing music, as soon as you play a note, it's gone. I know that's kind of obvious, but when you're playing with people who are much better than you (which is always a good thing to do) you really have to concentrate. And I found myself concentrating on which note to play, and which change to make, when. But once I had "made it", and played the right note, it was gone. It might as well have never been there. There were other ch...

That NetVibes let's you create your own page title? Cool huh? They really let you type a lot of stuff in there. That's very nice of them.

Hmmm. Simon was picking on me the other day for not being a good blogger any more. (Part of me was all offended - "You are incorrect - I'm teh awesome!", but mostly I was thinking - "That must mean that he thought I was a good blogger once - which is still pretty cool.") Alas, It's been a really long time since I've had much interesting to say, and most importantly the time to actually say it. Running a startup business is hard work, it takes a lot of time from you, and most of my precious blogging time has been spent on getting stuff together over on the infovark blog. It's a good site, and I'm very proud of it, but I admit that it does lack the kind of personal-ness that I like to read in blogs. Reading over my old posts here, I tended to write very honestly, and I didn't need to have a topic - I'd just waffle on about any old crap. Corporate blogging is quite a bit less freestyle, and more structured. So, in an effort to recapture my...