relax and enjoy…

comfy chairs in koko blackThis pic is of a rich, comfortable armchair overlooking the Royal Arcade. On the table is my (sadly) empty coffee cup. The lucky ones among you will recognise Koko Black.

A couple of times recently we’ve found ourselves in the vicinity of one of Melbourne’s Max Brenner shops and have braved the inevitable queue to order, then the long wait for the ‘goods’ to arrive. Not bad when they come, but it’s a real machine.

By contrast, on the weekend we dropped into Koko Black – it was busy and yes, there was a queue to be seated, but only a short one after which we were ushered up to the coffee lounge where we sank into these fantastic chairs and watched the comings and goings in the arcade below. The drinks are fabulous, probably not better than Max Brenner, but the service, the place, the whole scene is another world. I shouldn’t be touting for them – it’s busy enough as it is! Go to the one in Lygon Street instead!

Published
Categorized as personal

I have seen the future…

dtv logoand it is full screen, full motion and it should scare the bejeezus out of the traditional television broadcasters.

An organisation with a solid background in peer to peer networking, participatory culture have just released a beta of a product they call DTV. This is internet television. At the moment it is only available for Mac OSX 🙂 and still has some rough edges, but I found it immediately usable and instantly convincing.

It is the blissful and logical convergence of RSS, BitTorrent and VLC. I can see my broadband usage is going to increase somewhat! I’ll bet the PayTV companies thought this was still years away! Ha Ha!

Published
Categorized as tech

our nuclear secrets laid bare!

lucas heights nuclear facilityYou’ve got to admire the level of self importance enjoyed by the staff of Australia’s only nuclear reactor, Lucas Heights. Apparently, there are calls to censor the google satellite images of the reactor [ ABC News Online ] as they may be used by terrorists.

The precedent has, it seems, been set by the blanking out of the roof of the White House (though they left the Pentagon untouched), so naturally the next logical step is Lucas Heights! Never mind that you can plainly view the rows and rows and rows of military hardware at any number of bases in the US.

So you’d better get a good look at it now. I think this is the top secret cooling pond – for staff!

Published
Categorized as geo

and the tidbinbilla dish…

Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking StationActually, it took me a little while to find this one. Funny, because I’ve driven past it quite a few times and it stands out like a sore thumb among the rolling green hills of Canberra. It’s the Nasa Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Station. Nasa have a very informative site about it.

In a sobering aside, it’s worth noting that many of the nearby hills are bare from the devastating bushfires that struck the area in 2003.

Published
Categorized as geo

the dish…

Nasa Earth Satellite Station, CarnarvonNo, it’s not that dish. Parkes is still not in high res, but as soon as it is, I’ll let you know. This dish is the Nasa Satellite Earth Station in Carnarvon, in the north west of Western Australia.
Built in 1963 for the Gemini program, there’s a nice ground shot of the dish here.

Published
Categorized as geo

mystic spiral…

spiral sculpture, New ZealandYay!, googlesightseeing have posted another of my suggestions. This time a cool spiral thingy in new zealand that turns out to be some kind of a scuplture. They’ve got more information about it and a couple of links on their site, or if you’d rather go straight to the map, here it is.

Published
Categorized as geo

go pies!

I have absolutely no idea what they’re saying, but they obviously enjoy the game immensely and they’re wearing the right colours!! Komazawa University Magpies.

Published
Categorized as personal

the oyster farmer…

the oyster farmerIf you haven’t seen the new movie release, the oyster farmer, then make the effort. It is one of those wonderful, simple films that only seem to get made in Australia – maybe the French could do it too, but they’d make it too pretty. I’m sure the US film industry would be saying “but there’s no story!”.

Forget all that, this is a great story, eye-popping photography, lovable characters – perfectly underplayed, scenery that you’ll never forget and music that fits it perfectly.

the hawkesbury riverNot only that, but I have a google map location! There are a couple of scenes in the movie where a train snakes along the Hawkesbury waterfront… well, I reckon this is it, a siding with a small wharf to connect to boats that ply the system. Follow the river to the south west a little way and you’ll see some oyster leases that appear as dark lines (must be high tide).