This is way cooler.. http://www.imagechef.com/ic/make.jsp?tid=Tattoo+Back
Sunday, 10 June 2007
#10 Image Generators
Lolcats.. - basically adds a top and bottom text line to photos.. this is better than Photoshop how?
Monday, 4 June 2007
#9 RSS Feeding frenzy
What the heck.. more feeds
went to http://www.rssfeeds.com/ to pick out a new feed or two..
Library Link of the Day
&
Bills Digests
went to http://www.rssfeeds.com/ to pick out a new feed or two..
Library Link of the Day
&
Bills Digests
#8 RSS feeds
Kind of jumped into this already, and put up the ATO, News.com and Learning 2.0 RSS feeds earlier.
3 very different stories
ATO Feed has a couple per day, and generally works pretty well, if unspeakably boring.
News.com rushes by without any hope of comprehensive coverage. It's a glimpse feeder, and if you happen to spot an item of interest, click quick!
Learning 2.0 seems to have stopped. Last post was 13th Jan 2007.
I was intending to put the DEWR feed on today, since the Media Releases out of the Department of Employment & Workplace Relations seem to me to take civil service impartiality to a whole new level! Headlines like "Labor on AWAs Nothing More Than a Political Stunt" and "Hypocrisy of Union Bosses Exposed" are obviously the new neutrality of the public service, and certainly not a publicly funded outlet for Joe Hockey's political statements.
However, DEWR doesn't have any RSS feeds, so let's just hope there is some money put aside in the billion dollar advertising campaign that the government has planned to let us, the tax paying and voting population, know what issues are of concern to us. Is there an adult in this country that is NOT aware of WorkChoices?
Oddly, I've been reading of Athenian democracy in classical Greece. Democracy here was a far more participative affair, where the citizens voted directly on the issues, and attendance of voting citizens was compulsory, (mind you voting citizens was a minority of the population, about 5-10,000 of a city of 40-50,000). Coming from a background of local government, citizen participation in democratic institutions interests me (call me strange).
Even in classical times, voting blocks would form, but there was never any reference to the need to inform the citizenry of the issues. Indeed the issues frequently developed right there in the forum, in sometimes lethal ways. Politicians had to convince a majority of each issue, not every 3-4 years. After many years in local government I have become disenchanted by party politics, and politicians. Liberal, Labor or independant, there are remarkably few who wouldn't sell their mother for a superannuation package, and even fewer that remain trustworthy.
I've digressed, but my point being, do we really need to spend money on informing citizens of the issues they should be voting on (and lets remember none of us voted for WorkChoices, it came out only after the last election), or should we be looking at ways to more directly vote on issues and participate in government. If technology allowed up to vote directly on bills in parliament, I suspect politicians would do a much better job of keeping us informed on why we should vote for or against it, rather than the need for a spending spree at the end to attempt to influence the electorate. What possible justification is there for a democratic government telling the demos what to think and vote on, surely it should be the other way.
3 very different stories
ATO Feed has a couple per day, and generally works pretty well, if unspeakably boring.
News.com rushes by without any hope of comprehensive coverage. It's a glimpse feeder, and if you happen to spot an item of interest, click quick!
Learning 2.0 seems to have stopped. Last post was 13th Jan 2007.
I was intending to put the DEWR feed on today, since the Media Releases out of the Department of Employment & Workplace Relations seem to me to take civil service impartiality to a whole new level! Headlines like "Labor on AWAs Nothing More Than a Political Stunt" and "Hypocrisy of Union Bosses Exposed" are obviously the new neutrality of the public service, and certainly not a publicly funded outlet for Joe Hockey's political statements.
However, DEWR doesn't have any RSS feeds, so let's just hope there is some money put aside in the billion dollar advertising campaign that the government has planned to let us, the tax paying and voting population, know what issues are of concern to us. Is there an adult in this country that is NOT aware of WorkChoices?
Oddly, I've been reading of Athenian democracy in classical Greece. Democracy here was a far more participative affair, where the citizens voted directly on the issues, and attendance of voting citizens was compulsory, (mind you voting citizens was a minority of the population, about 5-10,000 of a city of 40-50,000). Coming from a background of local government, citizen participation in democratic institutions interests me (call me strange).
Even in classical times, voting blocks would form, but there was never any reference to the need to inform the citizenry of the issues. Indeed the issues frequently developed right there in the forum, in sometimes lethal ways. Politicians had to convince a majority of each issue, not every 3-4 years. After many years in local government I have become disenchanted by party politics, and politicians. Liberal, Labor or independant, there are remarkably few who wouldn't sell their mother for a superannuation package, and even fewer that remain trustworthy.
I've digressed, but my point being, do we really need to spend money on informing citizens of the issues they should be voting on (and lets remember none of us voted for WorkChoices, it came out only after the last election), or should we be looking at ways to more directly vote on issues and participate in government. If technology allowed up to vote directly on bills in parliament, I suspect politicians would do a much better job of keeping us informed on why we should vote for or against it, rather than the need for a spending spree at the end to attempt to influence the electorate. What possible justification is there for a democratic government telling the demos what to think and vote on, surely it should be the other way.
Friday, 1 June 2007
#7 Creating Content in your Blog
To a cetain extent that is what the visual tour is entended to do, to try and give a new staff member a visual guide to the library, though I have to say I have had better editing tools to get the picture & text sync'd. I uploaded the pictures to Flickr, but I never seemed to get them to load properly from there.
I had a look at Mosaicr and Mapr, which I found pretty useless really. Why I would want to turn a picture into a mosaic I can't imagine, what purpose does it serve? Mapr could be good if you can upload your own maps, and then add graphics on top of the map, but I'm pretty sure photoshop can do the job better if that was your desire. It would be a good floorplan design tool if you could insert photos of furnishings into a blueprint for fitout purposes. On the other hand, the architects fittings codes work well anyway!
So this brings me to the main point, to what purpose is some technology? Blogging in particular seems to be the re-iteration or linkage of other net published material, interspersed with personal opinions like this one. Perhaps there are some useful collections of materials and thought, but they seem few and far between.
So whilst there is a fun factor here, one has to ask how useful it really is? Things like Feeds just come through so fast it is more glimpse technology than any serious research tool. Generally I'd regard Forum pages as a better place for discourse and the sharing and critique of ideas. Blogs seems kind of shallow..
I had a look at Mosaicr and Mapr, which I found pretty useless really. Why I would want to turn a picture into a mosaic I can't imagine, what purpose does it serve? Mapr could be good if you can upload your own maps, and then add graphics on top of the map, but I'm pretty sure photoshop can do the job better if that was your desire. It would be a good floorplan design tool if you could insert photos of furnishings into a blueprint for fitout purposes. On the other hand, the architects fittings codes work well anyway!
So this brings me to the main point, to what purpose is some technology? Blogging in particular seems to be the re-iteration or linkage of other net published material, interspersed with personal opinions like this one. Perhaps there are some useful collections of materials and thought, but they seem few and far between.
So whilst there is a fun factor here, one has to ask how useful it really is? Things like Feeds just come through so fast it is more glimpse technology than any serious research tool. Generally I'd regard Forum pages as a better place for discourse and the sharing and critique of ideas. Blogs seems kind of shallow..
Visual Tour of Hurstville Library Pt 2
Back Right corner, where we keep the Newspaper archives.
The back corridor with the work area on the right hand side by the window, and my workstation at the far corner.
The work area for the Library staff, and the occasional visitor.
My workstation, filled with paperwork and child's artwork. Note the window views!
My view out southwards. Look hard and you can see a tiny stretch of blue, my water view of Georges River! Must be high tide.
Visual Tour of Hurstville Library Pt 1
The welcoming steel grey exterior of the office shows that the ATO really is trying to overcome it's image as the most feared organisation is Australia. Note the grey block in the bottom right corner, that used to have the organisation name on it, but it has been removed.Lift to Level 2, turn left and left again. The Library entry
On your right as you enter. The Front Desk of the Library, for Issues, Enquiries and Returns. The public face of the Library.
Same counter, but oblique views into the public access areas.
To the left of the entry, the reading area for current newspapers and journals
Oblique left view, into the shelves of Primary legal material, journals and books of taxation and tax law.
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