クワック!

2007-05-11T16:42:00.000+08:00

well it's been lovely being here on blogger, but i have outgrown what blogger can give me, and i have now moved to my own domain (christopherwilkie.com. i will continue to blog there, but i can now combine my twitter, jaiku, blog and photo/video sharing onto the one website rather than have several services. i hope you will continue to follow my work :)

2007-05-10T15:28:00.001+08:00

2007-05-04T17:12:00.000+08:00

i'm all about lifestreaming and i'm all about creating a more seamless link between people's lives, how they interact with others, and the devices they use to interact.

i am sure it's all be thought of before, but i wanted to outline an idea of mine.

i want a solution that works across the different systems i use, be they computer, phone, car, plane, watching tv, etc. any system for my everyday life that can intelligently be connected to create useful and meaningful information and help. primarily for the average person, their main devices are their mobile phones, their computers, their tvs, navigation systems and vehicles. as people lead more and more hectic lifestyles, finding the time to interact with others, though very important, is sometimes hard for most of us. this is where i feel lifestreaming is going to come into our lives in a big way as a means of keeping in touch with those around us, so we continue to maintain valued relationships.

overall, all devices and systems should be able to interact, but because the market is driven by money rather than by solving a problem, there is no way for companies to work together, or collaboratively and achieve anything worthwhile. i want this to change. i want the competitors to remain competitors, but all for the cause of pushing for better and more efficient development. anyway, aside from that, my idea;

i want the devices around me to read me, and not require me to tell them what to do, what to think, etc. i want my computer to read my facial features and detect changes in my voice so that it can start doing certain things. these abilities could detect when im angry and start playing soothing music, though recognizing i am working on a ducment that has a deadline set for 2 days from now, it decides to suggest relaxation methods that don't take much time, but are effective. it can meanwhile update my lifestreaming page with my current mood should i want it to. a lifestreaming page is going to be a page on the net that is all about you. it will have your current location, your emotion, your updated picture, methods of contact, what you do for a job, and all bits of information are shown dependant on who the viewer is, and what you have decided to show. imagine a jaiku/twitter, facebook, friendster, blog mashup. this site will be your profile, streamlined so that it is generic enough to be used by systems without needing much hacking and chopping, but is unique enough to be a digital identity for the real you.

my phone should be location aware, whether that awareness is based on the wifi network it is currently connected to, or by gps hotzones. these hot zones can be marked out areas, by yourself, can be used for a few different things. apart from providing a location for literally every phone carrier on the planet (and ask yourself, is there really a big brother out there who is going to spend his time watching you, or would you prefer the police be able to find you should you be kidnapped, or worse, your child be taken), it can be used as a trigger. my lifestreaming page can show my current location should i choose, also my phone could give me information on the closest restaurants, cafes or shoe shops. these hotspots can also aid in data collection by local councils so that infrastructure can be bettered, services can be made more efficient, all leading to a beter standard of man made environments.

aside from this, nearly every phone has a calendar, but it is a dumb tool that tells you what you have programmed in. why not have the work intelligently depending on the devices in use at any certain time. for example my phone knows my university schedule, so it turns my phone on and off silent when im in and out of classes. it can post to my lifestreaming page that im studying law atm or doing my management practical work. all depending on how much info you want it to post. a fun idea might be that it uses its gps functionality to detect how fast your travelling, and post that you either walking, driving or speeding down the freeway! aside from that, now it recognises i have work and does what every digital calendar should, and reminds me to leave because at 12.40 to be there by 1 because it has taken into account my location and calculated the commute time to be around 15 mins. all this time, my lifestreaming is being updated with whether i am in class or not, and whatever other info i want projected there. i start playing my music and put my earbuds in as i walk to my car. when i get in and switch the vehicle on, my stereo picks up on the phone's presence and fades the phone's music off and takes over playing my music through my car speakers. it also recognises i have an event coming up (work) and gets the location info i have put in for that event in my calendar. my gps intelligently maps my route to work for whatever location im starting from. i get to work and rather than putting events directly into my phone, i log into my own lifestreaming page and use the online calendar that is always in sync with calendar because now there is no central place for my calendar, instead it is an entity that floats from each device, without actually needing to be transferred. each calendar (on my phone, in my car, on my personal computer or on the web) is a sync of all others, as its presumed i'm only putting events into one calendar at a time.

i finish work and start driving home, only to find my dinner date has arrived early at my place. my house video calls my mobile phone, streaming me a feed of what my video intercom is seeing. i tell my house to start trusting this person, and it lets them in, switching lights on and turning the tv on to the entertainment channel because it knows she is a guest. i get home and am excited to show her the photos i took on my phone (that actually incorporates a decent camera, because people dont want to carry more than one device if they dont need to) and use my ps3 to stream the pics from my phone and throw them up on my high definition tv.

another intelligence should be between my phone and my laptop, each device detcting when the other is present and adjusting settings accordingly. for instance, i dont want to have both my phone and laptop inform me i have new mail. when i'm in front of my computer, i want it to let me know, and when i'm out on the road or not at my desk, i want my phone to tell me. but i still want both devices to give me access to the same things. so when my laptop knows my phone is close by, it tells me i have new mail, and tells the phone not to worry about letting me know as well. just like when im away from my desk, my phone lets me know, and my computer doesnt have piles of notices for me to click out of when i get back to it. of course, any mail i do read or not on either device will be mirrored on the other. my phone even lets me take and make video calls on my computer because its easier for me that way rather than holding a phone up in front of me. whats even cooler is that as my phone knows where i am, it can tell the caller i am unlikely to take a video call in my lecture, but a voicecall is fine.

back home, i'm watching tv with my housemate. my tv has posted what tv show im watching to my lifestreaming page. my housemate has specified not to be alerted of new mail, but i have chosen to be alerted via the tv if my phone is not with me (proximity sensors will sort all that out) because i run my own business and dont want to delay on replying to clients. a small notification box pops up in the top right and i go to my computer to reply to my new mail. i then go out as i have to see a client and on th way home, i stop by the shops. the shopping has already been done for this week, but my housemate has been craving chocolate and so wrote that on the wishlist the fridge displays as part of its interactive menu. because the devices can talk to each other across mediums (over wifi, phone service and internet), my phone knows im at the shops, as does the fridge, and so the fridge asks my phone to tell me to get the chocolate my housemate wants. my fridge is very intelligent as well. it knows my timetable because it can access my calendar, so it knows when i will be home so the groceries can be delivered. my fridge can also start recognising trends of how many people are usually in the house at what times, what days and what months during the year so nothing is bought when its not needed.

i tell my calendar i want a haircut sometime this week, and it will contact the hairdresser and find a time they can cut my hair, and that i am free too, taking into account commute time of course. it will then book it in for me.

something controversial and not supported by everyone is the reporting of location awareness info to authorities. i put it like this; people can choose whether their info is freely available, or available in an emergency. my lifestreaming page knows where i am, but do i want police tracking my every move?...well in some instances, yes i do. my phone will be able to realise if im in a precarious situation, whether ive just had a car accident or that someone is holding me hostage, and contact authorities and people i have listed as emergency contacts. alternatively i have been missing but my phone hasn't realised anything is wrong. my housemate has though, and had my location not bee posted to my lifestreaming page, authorities could request it, but only after going through the right legal channels. big brother isn't going to watch everyone, or anyone for that matter.

i think systems developers need to be more focused on having their products work seamlessly together than to try and have their product used the most, and incompatible with anything else. people want integration, not mutual exclusivity between their devices.

2007-05-03T20:06:00.000+08:00

lol an interesting read, how one man's PS3 killed his 360

2007-04-30T19:16:00.000+08:00

well...i am going to continually update this post with how my experience is going over a 2 week period. there will be a stars system. an empty star (✩) means everything is dandy, whereas a filled star (✭) means there is a problem, or that a problem still isnt resolved. the marker (|) is going to be shifted to appear after the day i am currently on.

lets see how this goes. and yes, there has been a problem on the very first day.

✭ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ | ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩ ✩

2007-04-30T08:07:00.000+08:00

for anyone interested in ken kutaragi, here is a very fitting article that puts him in the light that he well deserves.

2007-04-28T15:51:00.001+08:00

wilkie.jaiku.com

2007-04-22T19:21:00.001+08:00

something lighter now...a girl who got her stuck in a pan :P

i feel bad for her but it is humorous :P

2007-04-22T19:15:00.000+08:00

WARNING - THIS IS A SHOCKING VIDEO AND MUST NOT BE WATCHED IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE OR HAVE A WEAK STOMACH.

If anyone hasn't seen this yet, this video is of a 12 year old taliban boy beheading a man accused of being a spy. the story is below. i cannot fathom how this child can do this...

Jihadist Video Shows Boy Beheading Man
By ABDUL SATTAR
Associated Press Writer

The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive's head to cries of "God is great!" and hoists it in triumph by the hair.

A video circulating in Pakistan records the grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.

An Associated Press reporter confirmed Nabi's identity by visiting his family in Kili Faqiran, their remote village in southwestern Pakistan.

The video, which was obtained by AP Television News in the border city of Peshawar on Tuesday, appears authentic and is unprecedented in jihadist propaganda because of the youth of the executioner.

Captions mention Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban's current top commander in southern Afghanistan, although he does not appear in the video. The soundtrack features songs praising Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar and "Sheikh Osama" - an apparent reference to Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

The footage shows Nabi making what is described as a confession, being blindfolded with a checkered scarf.

"He is an American spy. Those who do this kind of thing will get this kind of fate," says his baby-faced executioner, who is not identified.

A continuous 2 1/2-minute shot then shows the victim lying on his side on a patch of rubble-strewn ground. A man holds Nabi by his beard while the boy, wearing a camouflage military jacket and oversized white sneakers, cuts into the throat. Other men and boys call out "Allahu akbar!" - "God is great!" - as blood spurts from the wound.

The film, overlain with jihadi songs, then shows the boy hacking and slashing at the man's neck until the head is severed.

A Pashto-language voiceover in the video identifies Nabi and his home village of Kili Faqiran in Baluchistan province, which lies about two hours' drive from the Afghan border.

A reporter went to the village, and Nabi's distraught and angry father, Ghulam Sakhi, confirmed his son's identity from a still picture that AP made from the footage. He said neighbors had told him the video is available at the village bazaar, but he had no wish to see it.

Sakhi said his son had been a loyal Taliban member who fought in Afghanistan and sheltered the hard-line Afghan group's leaders in the family's mud-walled compound.

He blames the Taliban and wants to avenge his son's death.

"The Taliban are not mujahedeen. They are not fighting for the cause of Islam," the 70-year-old said. "If I got my hands on them I would kill them and even tear their flesh with my own teeth."

Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told AP he had no information about Nabi or the video. None of the group's commanders he contacted could confirm the execution, he said.

The method of Nabi's death was not unusual for Pakistan's lawless tribal regions. Suspected informers are regularly found beheaded and dumped along the side of the road in the lawless, mountainous regions along the Afghan-Pakistani border where al-Qaida and Taliban militants find sanctuary.

But such al-Qaida-style killings are rarely featured in the Taliban's increasingly frequent propaganda videos. The use of a child to conduct the beheading stands out even among those filmed by militants in Iraq.

"This is outright barbarism," Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said after viewing the video. "Whosoever has committed this, whether they are Taliban or anybody else or any Afghan or al-Qaida or anybody, they are enemy No. 1 of the Muslims."

The video accuses Nabi of responsibility for a U.S. airstrike that killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, who was regarded as one of the top three associates of Omar, the Taliban supreme leader. He was hit while traveling by car in Afghanistan's Helmand province Dec. 19.

Osmani was the highest-ranking Taliban leader to die since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that ousted the hard-line regime in late 2001 for refusing to hand over bin Laden following the Sept. 11 terror attack on the United States.

The U.S. military said at the time that Osmani's death was a serious blow to militant operations, and NATO commanders said this week that a feared spring offensive had yet to materialize.

Sakhi, a retired mosque preacher with a long gray beard, spoke unashamedly of his son's Taliban affiliation and wept twice during an interview in his simple home at the foot of a mountain valley in Baluchistan province.

He said Nabi fought against the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance that helped U.S. forces to victory in Afghanistan.

After returning to Pakistan, Nabi ran a religious school in the Baluchistan capital of Quetta and had regularly sheltered both Osmani and Dadullah at the family compound, the father said.

He said Nabi also bought weapons for Taliban fighters and organized medical treatment for those injured during fighting in Afghanistan.

Some days after Osmani's death, Nabi went to Peshawar and then to Wana, a tribal town considered a militant stronghold, to collect money from Taliban officials to buy guns and food for militants in Afghanistan, Sakhi said.

He said his son called at the end of January to reveal that a tribal council had sentenced him to death on charges of tipping off U.S. forces about Osmani's movements, despite his denials.

His son passed the phone to Dadullah, but the militant leader ignored his pleas for clemency, Sakhi said.

"I talked to him and said you visited us and my son was a close friend so why are you going to hang him? He just said, 'How are you?', and switched off the phone," Sakhi said.

"They are the enemies of Islam," he said of the Taliban. "They are behaving like savages."

Sam Zarifi, Asia research director for Human Rights Watch, said the use of a child to commit such an act constituted a war crime and was a "new low" in the conflict in Afghanistan.

He noted the Taliban had teenage combatants but they were not recruited on a large scale because of the availability of adult fighters. He said he had seen children in the background of some jihadist videos but none in which they were directly involved in violence.

"I don't know why they would do this," Zarifi said. "The Taliban have to some extent tried to play to the public in Afghanistan and have not engaged in the complete sowing of mayhem that we have seen in Iraq. But this kind of act is really egregious. It's off the charts."

2007-04-21T18:53:00.000+08:00

2007-04-19T19:29:00.000+08:00

2007-04-15T16:43:00.001+08:00

"Bravia X Series 46"" by Voice Out on Flickr.

"23rd March 2007 my ps3 & LCD arrives on same day" by send2murat on Flickr.

well my lovely lcd finally arrived to complement my ps3 :D

2007-04-13T17:19:00.001+08:00

who knew M$ paint could be so useful!

2007-04-05T20:53:00.000+08:00

hey guys, well sorry i havent posted for a while, had such a busy few weeks. im in canberra at the moment! im having so much fun im loving it. i have been spending time with one of my close friends and its been so good to hang out with him, i have managed to catch up with another friend, and shall do with 2 more hopefully very soon.

they ask me how i like canberra and i say i like it, but they think its shitsville :P...i will hopefully post some piccies up, when i manage to upgrade my flickr account to pro! (hint hint: good bday pressie :P)

missing my mum and best friend of course. and yes my other friends too :) i only get to see my darwin friends once a year, and sometimes not even that, so im really ecstatic to be here and just relaxing.

well gonna go now, dont miss me too much :P...lol i got so much work when i get back, but i just dont care, this is so fantastic :D:D:D

cya!

ps: hope you liked the video of the otters holding hands :D

2007-03-31T22:32:00.000+08:00

this is is absolutely adorable!! watch it all the way through for maximum cuteness ^_^

2007-03-31T22:16:00.001+08:00

"PS3" by nic0 on Flickr.

aww, poor you tommy! i got my new ps3 today (which tommy doesnt have ;))...jealous much piggy? :P

2007-03-31T09:25:00.001+08:00

check out the universcale

2007-03-25T19:03:00.000+08:00

lol this game is catching. my top score is 1750, see if u can beat it!

2007-03-23T18:58:00.001+09:00

"Zoo #6" by onkel_wart on Flickr.

wow very nice

2007-03-22T19:33:00.000+09:00

oh my god. it has been too long for me. if you didnt already know, i have moved house and for the time i have not posted, is the time i HAVE HAD NO INTERNET!!!! aaaargh more than a month without any damn net.

thank god it finally got turned on.

2007-02-24T18:30:00.000+09:00

2007-02-04T00:31:00.000+09:00

lol this video is kinda funny to watch considering i have no idea of what the context is, but it sure isnt the best way to make friends in iraq. though it could have been a medical humvee, or they could have been trying to go and assist another party across town, so we cant be too angry towards them. still wish we could do that here though when there are b*tches below the speed limit -_-"

2007-02-03T23:07:00.001+09:00

2007-02-02T22:35:00.000+09:00

today has really been a stressful day. get up, and get a phone call that the removalist who is taking all our stuff to our new house, has double booked and cant move us on friday. we already had trouble having to coordinate them to move us out before our asshoole landlord moved in on the afternoon of rht 5th (the same day we are frikken moving out.)

so panic sets in. who the f*ck is going to move us??? especially with basically NO notice!!...we start frantically ringing around, i start ringing, mum starts ringing, everybody is booked up till march. im started to get really skitzo at the woman who f*cked us over. she then says she can get us a truck for the arvo (it's their fault anyway, i wouldnt expect to have some decent service) but the other guy had to move IN in the arvo. couldnt work. anyway so i finally found a place that could move the entire lot. i had just about given up hope and we found them. so thankfully we will still be moving on the monday and no thanks to f*cking ALLIED PICKFORDS. if ANYBODY wants to use them, mys suggestion is DONT.

sigh

anyway, next thing was going through all the documentation, singing forms and sorting out insurance for the move. and cos of all this running around, i was late to work (which in itself was bugging me cos the f*ckers there think they can screw me out of what i'm legally allowed as break time. c*cksuckers have learnt not to mess with me considering i won over them on that one.) anyway so yeh. it mightnt seem like a lot to you, but it was frantic. trust me.

but now, im watching a korean movie called windstruck and i think its now my fave. its really a wonderful movie. i advise everyone to watch it if you get the chance, you wont regret it.

2007-01-31T07:25:00.000+09:00

well people, normally i'd be writing about the new colored ipod shuffles and how good they are (i guess i have now havent i) but its all happening 23 march for the big stuff. playstation 3 is finally going to be released in australia and i gotta tell ya, its been pissing me off a LOT having to wait. but im sure its been pissing all us aussies off, but we will get ours soon enough so it seems ok :P

2007-01-26T09:47:00.001+09:00

I WANT TO TRY THIS!!!!!

2007-01-21T18:25:00.001+09:00

lol classic ^_^

2007-01-19T16:35:00.001+09:00

2007-01-14T09:54:00.000+09:00

Wow Just Amazing Bike Trick - video powered by Metacafe

this guy is freakin talented!!

2007-01-13T21:14:00.001+09:00

2007-01-12T18:37:00.000+09:00

lol this woman is funny haha ^_^

2007-01-10T20:11:00.000+09:00

well, yet again apple has innovated and revolutionised the way we live, work and play, and i would have to say one of their most ingenious devices since way back when with the lisa, has been the new iphone. truly a spectacular feat of engineering and design accomplishment, along with the intuitive ease of use that apple products have always been known for. again i cannot reiterate enough how development apple has been in not only the personal computer industry as a whole, but also the music, video hopefully now the phone industry too. if ever there was someone to learn from, it would have to be the team at apple who continue to stretch their imagination and make it a reality.

"Apple iPhone dashboard" by niallkennedy on Flickr.

pantone

2007-01-08T22:43:00.001+09:00

"pantone" by iboy_daniel on Flickr.

i love pantone ^_^

2007-01-06T23:45:00.000+09:00

ok, i got 2 vids for u today. the first one wont let me embed it so u must watch it on youtube itself. its about caffeinated and crack whore spiders, so click here to watch it :P

second one is only for you to watch if you have time, and appreciate sad video game humor lol.

2007-01-06T21:33:00.001+09:00

"::::The Fulling Leaves::::" by ~§سـحــ العـيـــون ـــر§ ~ on Flickr.

"..::Rain Falls::.." by ~§سـحــ العـيـــون ـــر§ ~ on Flickr.

"..::In The Garden::.." by ~§سـحــ العـيـــون ـــر§ ~ on Flickr.

2007-01-05T16:43:00.000+09:00

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

net neutrality. this is a BIG issue, and u need to wake up to it. the only reason i have taken so long to post about this, is cos i, like u, thought it would go away and net neutrality would prevail...

it hasnt.

2007-01-01T21:40:00.001+09:00

2007-01-01T21:32:00.001+09:00

2006-12-31T10:20:00.001+09:00

2006-12-29T22:35:00.001+09:00

this kid knows more than me and he is like 6!...go the curries! ^_^

2006-12-29T21:48:00.000+09:00

lol TOTALLY what i'd imagined shakira to be as a fatty hahaha

2006-12-29T20:58:00.000+09:00

lol u see more enthusiasm in this lil tyke than u do in fully fledged recording artists!

2006-12-28T13:38:00.000+09:00

he has too much time, but meh its kool ^_^

2006-12-26T19:09:00.001+09:00

2006-12-26T14:01:00.000+09:00

hahahahaha "awwwww im SOOO sorry" lol

2006-12-26T13:36:00.000+09:00

while my father has gone off and cheated on my mum...i dont have much respect for him, so dont think this video is a reflection of that. this video was sent to me by somebody close and i hope it means something to you, it's of their daughter talking about her father because he has gone to fight in the iraq war.

2006-12-26T13:33:00.001+09:00

silvia

2006-12-25T21:03:00.001+09:00

"silvia badge 6" by Herb.Real on Flickr.

2006-12-25T09:39:00.000+09:00

please people, dont forget there are those much worse of than you, and give generously and spread the christmas spirit :)

2006-12-24T10:02:00.000+09:00

lol dumb psychic biatch

2006-12-22T17:04:00.001+09:00

"janet in barry humphries glasses" by .wilkie on Flickr.

hehe apparently barry humphries reckons janet needs new glasses so he sent her his :P

today was the heytesbury xmas party, and it was kept hush hush up until today about where we were going. we ended up going to this great little place called urban provider, which is this guy in hiw house (albeit a nice house lol) and he holds cooking classes and stuff...we didnt actually cook our own food in this class but we all sat around and watched him, but it was fantastic! there were lots of dishes, including pimientos rellenos (pepperdew peppers stuffed with herbed goats chesse), pollo al ajillo (paprika and garlic chicken with white wine), tortilla espanola (spanish potato and spinach frittata), gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns), paella de pollo y chorizo (chicken and dried chorizo paella), pear, rocket and parmesan salad and lastly banana tarte tatin

"heytesbury xmas lunch" by .wilkie on Flickr.

this is the pimientos rellenos, pollo al ajillo, tortilla espanola, gambas al ajillo

"heytesbury xmas lunch" by .wilkie on Flickr.

this is the banana tarte tatin

2006-12-22T10:32:00.001+09:00

I WANT A BLOODY Wii ALREADY

2006-12-21T13:06:00.000+09:00

whoa...ok well yesterday there was a guy in a flea van stopped at the entrance to my estate, and not moving. i pulled up behind him and found out the poor guy had run out of fuel, so as other jerks were beeping etc, i flicked them off and then i dropped him to the fuel station to get a can of fuel. then i rushed to work.

today, i see the same guy, at the lights 30kms from my place, and he gives me the thumbs up saying thanks lol. how coincidental!

anyway today i went xmas shopping and popped in to work to pick up something, and as im leaving i have to cross over this cross-intersection. there are stop signs on the road crossing in front of me but i have right of way. anyway this cyclist comes riding up straight through the sign looking down the road in the direction i was heading (obviously not looking at me) and bang right in front of my car. FUCK i swerved out the way and beeped the horn and then stopped. then drove away. the look on this guy's face was classic lol, he nearly went over his handlebars trying to stop lol and my sister was cacking herself with laughter in the passenger seat lol. i felt kinda bad for the guy cos i beeped right in his ear, but the fucker nearly became my emblem!

anyway so going home, i pulling into my road and guess who i see parked on the side of the road. yep its the flea guy again!...im starting to think maybe there might be a flea problem near my home lol.

2006-12-20T13:45:00.001+09:00

2006-12-20T13:39:00.000+09:00

lol if only they made this, so many emo kid would have a happy christmas

2006-12-16T22:47:00.000+09:00

2006-12-16T08:09:00.000+09:00

"smashed s15" by .wilkie on Flickr.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

2006-12-13T22:14:00.001+09:00

lol only in america ey. YES parents. u SHOULD be worried lol.

fuckin dumbass american news channel

2006-12-11T14:12:00.003+09:00

"[a] [A] [a]....BurJ Al AraB" by • [a] • [A] • [a] •™ on Flickr.

one of the most beautiful hotels (burj al arab (lit: tower of arab)) in one of the most affluent cities in the world (dubai)

2006-12-11T14:05:00.002+09:00

"car" by nick the klick on Flickr.

wikiiid ^_^

2006-12-10T19:04:00.000+09:00

update to wilkie's life:

so, i went to office works in west perth the other day, and walked like THREE EFFING KILOMETRES back to peter's shop with this giant roll of bubble wrap lol which was roughly 50cm x 50cm x 50cm. huuuge. anyway people were gawking at me, lol who cares. then over the next few days i kept seeing random people i knew from random people in my past. THAT was crazy -_-"

hmm then petey gave me a sword as a pressie which was ROILY nice :D thanks peeeeteeeyyy :D...oh and also did you all know the boat from the movie 'the island' is real!! it is a real yacht and costs between $16mil and $22mil depending on ur options!...the $22mil version comes with a fancy CODOG propulsion system :P

oh and for those of you who didnt already kno, ur gonna find out soon enough anyway...i'm buying a new car soon, anyway i have been looking at cars and i found one i am basing my car on (i'm buying a stock car and modding the hell out of it :D)...ANYWAY i was in harvey norman the other day and looking at the sony vaio ux umpc...and the same picture of the car that i am building was set as the freaking desktop!!!! i couldnt believe it! what a bitch! of all the things that could have been on the wallpaper, it had to be THAT car, THAT EXACT picture, at THIS time of year when im buying it the damn thing. thats just crazy and a HUGE coincidence.

sheesh

anyway lastly some bad news. the doggy of one of my good friends was attacked by a BASTARD rottweiler (who btw i hope is put down slowly)...my friend's poor lil sausage dog has a punctured lung and teeth marks and a chunk of meat missing. he is in doggy hospital, so can everyone please hope that he comes through all alright, cos my friend is really cut, and i'd hate to see him lose another dog. oh and the dog's name is 'fred'
for those of you praying for him :)

2006-12-08T22:35:00.000+09:00

hey everybody, sorry for being away so long, lots of people have been mailing me wondering where i am. i just been very busy. sorry!...anyway i bring u a cool video today about how to hack a coke machine :P...any people reading this who go to uni with me, u can actually do this at curtin cos there is one of these machines in the architecture building, and also one in the bookmark cafe! so if u wanna try it, tell me how it goes, cos im not game to get caught :P

2006-12-01T09:57:00.000+08:00

ewwwwwwwwwww this is diirrttttyyyyy

2006-11-26T08:54:00.000+08:00

my god. ok so yesterday i went to a training session and we are about halfway through and there is an almighty smash outside (we we're all in the boardroom). now the training lady just held her head and said "ohhh that happens every other week..." and proceeded to blab on about it. I however sat there for a split second to hear her say that much and then i got up and ran down the stairs and out onto the road (i have huge ethical and moral issues with just not doing anything when i could be helping in that sort of situation). so i get out there and some jerk in a ute had run a stop sign and crashed into a relatively elderly woman (bout 50-60ish), though i must say that that road is a death trap, the stop signs are set too far back and people can not always see them.

anyway so the ute guy is out cursing at the front of his car and the woman is trying to get out of her car without much progress. meanwhile EVERYONE, and i mean the whole 6ish pedestrians and cafe-goers all are just sitting around gobsmacked rather than DOING something pro-active. anyway so i rush over and help the lady out, tell her my name and that i need to check her pulse (to see if she was about to go into shock or something worse) but she ended up being ok. i didnt wanna check the guy cos he seemed fine (his car had just gone straight through and smacked the front of her car, she on the other hand had spun around and was half on the kerb and half off by the end of it). so yeh, gave them both my details for insurance purposes in case they needed it and i went back into the office.

when i get back, the trainer lady sat there with this sort of angry look and said "where did YOU go???" and i said "i had to go see to the accident". she then started getting annoyed telling me if i wanted to go and see accidents i was a little weird and that i shouldnt be doing that if it happens again while working. i'm guessing she thought i said "i had to go and SEE the accident" rather than "i had to go and see TO the accident". anyway so i told her "you know, i am a first aider and it's my obligation to go and help in a traumatic event if i am in the vicinity no matter what i'm doing, and i will be rushing to anyone's aid who needs it" and then i sat down, meanwhile the rest of the trainees sat silent and she just looked at me and then proceeded with the training.

i dont know if it was the right thing to do to speak back or have such a firm tone, but i frankly dont care. i dont know i want to work for such a company where the people sit in their fancy boardroom while car accidents are happening outside and someone could be critically injured. ESPECIALLY if the useless pedestrians do absolutely nothing about it.

i think i am going to write to the local council in that area and make some noise about that intersection, because if it really does happen every other week, i dont know if i could end up sleeping at night after working there a while :S

2006-11-26T08:48:00.000+08:00

hehehe ^_^

Flickr Photo

2006-11-26T08:44:00.000+08:00

"List Price: $723,440.00" by Paul Stamatiou on Flickr.

2006-11-26T08:43:00.000+08:00

this bird is impressive!!

Flickr Photo

2006-11-25T08:25:00.000+08:00

"mendhi" by puja on Flickr.

Flickr Photo

2006-11-25T08:20:00.001+08:00

""Hólahólar"" by stingu on Flickr.

Flickr Photo

2006-11-25T08:20:00.000+08:00

"..... and orange" by Sjeem on Flickr.

Flickr Photo

2006-11-24T10:11:00.000+08:00

"vasse sign" by .wilkie on Flickr.

went to vasse felix today, was a really great trip! i went for work and so i was working a lot while i was there, but nonetheless, all the buildings were nice and the gardens as well. they even have fancy sculptures dotted in various places which probably cost and arm and a leg lol. and its surprising to see how close together all the wineries are down there!...i mean ino its wine country, but just over the road from vasse felix is juniper, and down the road are some other ones all next to each other. i thought they would have been more spaced out. *shrugs* but anyway yeh it was a great trip, i took a few other photos which you can see below.

"cellar door" by .wilkie on Flickr.

this is the cellar door entrance and the gardens above it.

"creek" by .wilkie on Flickr.

and this is the creek that runs along vasse, and you can see some of the sculptures here, the yellow and grey one is called the doughnut (i think) and the wooden one behind is called the spider.

"salt + pepper duck" by .wilkie on Flickr.

and this was my lunch!! this was such a fantastic dish..the salad was almighty spicy, but the salt and pepper duck was great ^_^

2006-11-23T23:18:00.000+08:00

awww i just bought some fancy shoes yesterday, and today while driving to margaret river, the aircon dripped on one of them and now there is a bit of a stain v_v. i think i might have to take it to a shoe maker or something, or buy a new one if it wont come out :(

2006-11-22T10:06:00.001+08:00

pretty pretty screens in the lifts of Apple Ginza tell u what is where

Flickr Photo

2006-11-19T08:08:00.000+08:00

"Snow" by pulper on Flickr.

2006-11-16T20:03:00.000+08:00

It's A Heartache - Bonnie Tyler

It's a heartache
Nothing but a heartache

Hits you when it's too late
Hits you when you're down
It's a fool's game

Nothing but a fool's game
Standing in the cold rain

Feeling like a clown.

It's a heartache

Nothing but a heartache.
Love her till your arms break

Then she lets you down.
It ain't right with love to share
When you find she doesn't care for you.
It ain't wise to need someone
As much as I depended on you.

It's a heartache
Nothing but a heartache

Hits you when it's too late
. . .

It ain't r'ight with love to share
. . .

Oh it's a heartache

Nothing but a heartache.
Love her till your arms break

Then she let's you down
It's a fool's game

Standing in the cold rain

Feeling like a clown.

It's a heartache
Love her till your arms break
Then she let's you down
It's a heartache
. . .

2006-11-16T16:54:00.000+08:00

ok...so i dont know what it is about thursdays, but yeh, thursday always seems to a be a shit day for me v_v...here is what happened:

- go to an exam which i hadnt spent much time revising for. i think i did ok, but im not sure. maybe i will get a distinction.

- i drive into the city for some business, and am on a call to a friend who's ex boyfriend works at the shop their father owns, and being the slimy jerk that he is, is threatening to sue my friend's father (on what grounds i do not know -_-") or go to the tax department, if he does not get a pay rise. and he already gets paid ABOVE award rate. asshole....but yeh, she is crying a lot and i want to go console her, but the traffic is a bitch and she is working anyway, so i went to see her later in the arvo when it was quieter.

- anyway went into the city, did my thing and on the way out of the city, i'm driving down hay st, and king st is sposed to give way to me. but NO, some stupid italian guy in his stupid peugeot with his stupid friend, PULLS out in front of me. fucker. i slam my brakes on, and beep my horn and the fucker stopped as well and looks at me with a grimace. then i'm waiting for him to move and he keeps looking, so i motion to him to get the fuck out the way as well as yelling "get the FUCK out of the way" (cos i like helping people figure out what i'm thinking :)) and he KEEPS LOOKING!...so i stick my finger up, and then he moves his stupid ass. fucking hell.

- so anyway i get onto the freeway and 2 mins into the drive, some old woman starts coming into my side on the freeway and i have to plant my foot to save myself from the concrete barrier!

- so i get to uni, and there are heaps of cops around the engineering building...so i go an ask one of them, and they inform me that a girl had killed herself last night by jumping from the engineering building. every window inside the engineering building facing the quadrangle where she died had been covered with brown paper, and there were high barriers to stop us getting close. from upstairs though the windows had not been covered and it was quite disgusting to see what the police were washing away. somebody had found her in the morning, and they were still trying to get rid of the..."residue" from the scene.

such a strange, wacky and very disheartening day for me. i feel so sad for the family for their loss of their daughter and i only hope that they can find it in themselves to not bury themselves in blame as they were probably the best parents to her.

2006-11-14T20:53:00.000+08:00

2006-11-13T20:55:00.000+08:00

2006-11-12T20:53:00.000+08:00

we all carry something with us. of course, it's nice if we travel with someone who can help lighten the load. but usually it's just easier to drop what we've been carrying, so we can get home, that much sooner. assuming of course, there will be someone there to greet us, when we arrive.

why do we clutch at this baggage, even when we're desperate to move on?...because we all know there's a chance, we might let go too soon.

2006-11-12T14:00:00.000+08:00

aww this is sweet

Muffins

2006-11-12T13:56:00.000+08:00

"Muffins" by tarotastic on Flickr.

2006-11-12T13:50:00.000+08:00

well people. i got a court case tomorrow on JUST this topic. fucking police brutality, and while this is in the US, our police are no better here. following is a clip i shot myself at australia day this year, where a man is held down by THREE cops, and bashed in the face by a fourth one, who happens to be a senior sargent, and who now isnt a senior sargent (or anything for that matter) anymore.

2006-11-12T13:48:00.000+08:00

hehehe this is classic

2006-11-12T12:19:00.000+08:00

hehehe anyone with a programming background will get this one. here are some different hello world programs written from beginner to pro level :P

2006-11-12T12:16:00.000+08:00

whoa, dr phil is a BADASS! go dr phil!

2006-11-11T18:08:00.000+08:00

arrrggggghhhhhhhhh dammit i wanna watch lost again!!!!!...they taunted us with 6 episodes this year, and now there is THIRTEEN WEEKS before we will see any more *cries*

2006-11-11T13:56:00.000+08:00

ino this is old news, but some people who read my blog are old, and might appreciate it :P

2006-11-08T21:56:00.000+08:00

a very very interesting look at savant autism

2006-11-07T21:06:00.000+08:00

ok now here's something weird. my mother received a letter in the mail today that came in a hand addressed envelope from a company we hadn't heard of before. inside, is a document with a letter stapled to the front, telling us of fee changes for our account with them.

here are the weird things:

- the company is a financial services company we haven't heard of before
- at the very top is the date, which for some reason reads 25th of august. that is 3 months ago.
- at the top, my mother's name is written, but the name and address of my father's company underneath, where my mother has never worked. whats even a little stranger is the "GPO Box" bit was actually written with a lowercase (not small-caps) 'p' and 'o', so it read "Gpo Box"
- next to the address etc is my mother's birthdate and some weird 10 digit number handwritten, in a different handwriting to what was written on the front of the envelope
- the whole front cover letter that this is all written on, looks like it has been stapled, and then the staple has been picked out, and that had been done a few times.

very weird. we cant figure out what any of it means or what to do about it...

2006-11-07T15:09:00.000+08:00

I WON I WON I WON ^_^ hehe in the sweepstakes at work we each got two horses picked out of a hat, i got railings and delta blues and i won first prize on the sweepstakes with delta blues!! :D

2006-11-07T14:56:00.000+08:00

lol it's not really on drugs, but imagine if we put lulu on drugs :P...hey peter? can we try? lol...i wanna put tape on her again haha.

melbourne cup day

2006-11-07T10:07:00.000+08:00

"melbourne cup day at the office" by .wilkie on Flickr.

This is me at work being goofy in my pith helmet :P...I thought i'd take a pic before we went to lunch :D

2006-11-03T22:19:00.000+08:00

2006-11-03T20:29:00.000+08:00

my DEAR GOD...could kanye west be any MORE of a whiney BITCH???...FUCK! who CARES how much you fucking spent dude, you are a SORE LOSER now get the FUCK OFF THE STAGE!!

2006-10-30T16:13:00.000+08:00

i love family guy ^_^

2006-10-30T16:11:00.000+08:00

ok this is more like FREAKING ME OUT than making me wanna get a frikken PS3

2006-10-29T18:54:00.001+08:00

Good news people! (and a tiny bit of bad too)...i just found these wikid lil apps that allow you to share your iCal calendars (CalTalk) and your address book (address-o-sync) over bonjour! (thats the good news)...the only thing is that they are still only powerpc apps (...the bad news)

but not to worry, they will work fine in rosetta and take up close to no resources :)

2006-10-28T22:41:00.000+08:00

2006-10-28T22:21:00.000+08:00

i see 3 dead birds in one day, including a dead ducky. wtf is this world coming to where people can't slow down for the ducks?!?

flickr photo

2006-10-28T20:39:00.000+08:00

"PICT0003.modi" by LutzDesign on Flickr.

oh yes....look at the pretty keyboard. soon, soon you shall be mine, my precious.

PS: for those of you wondering (i think only amanda is wondering :P) i am now getting a 24" imac desktop with a 750GB internal hdd. along with 2gb ram and a NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT (256mb GDDR3) and dual 750GB external disks, pushing my total storage capacity to an almighty 2.75 TERABYTES.

thats right. i am better than you ;)

as for my macbook pro. welllll ino it's only 7 months old, but times are changing, and i have too much money, so i will be passing it on to someone (if you ask for it, you can guarantee it wont be you :D) and i shall indulge myself in a new toy, a new macbook (un-pro this time) which hopefully will soon be out with the new core 2 duos in them. i want something smaller than this dinnerplate i have to lug around with me now -_-" as i will be using the imac as my main machine, and the macbook will just save me printing out lecture notes.

hmm *taps chin* now if i was logical about this, wouldnt it be cheaper to just print the notes out rather than spend $2400 on a laptop to view them on? yeh i spose it would be...but then you all wouldnt have someone to envy, now would you ;)