Well! The UN has noticed that fewer people are having kids.

The United Nations has finally changed its demographic predictions. Instead of foreseeing population growth or even explosion, the new estimates acknowledge that world population is on course to shrink—with significant social, economic, and strategic implications.

How long will it take for the pundits to be rolled out, wailing about how having fewer kids is bad bad for the economy?

I have no idea where this image came from originally, but it was forwarded on through email and email and email. These guys were some of my role models growing up. I remember walking down the video store with my dad and my brother and loading up on old black and white Laurel & Hardy collections.

This applies to the “trash” part of Culture and Trash – and cheers to Georgi for sending this along. How she knew I was in the midst of technolust I’ll never know.

Don’t dump It� donate it!

Scope and the Aussie Recycling Program have teamed up to help stop millions of unwanted mobile phone going into landfill. By donating your old mobile phone/s, you will:

• save the environment;
  
• help provide modern communications to people in developing countries; and
  
• raise funds for Scope to provide services to people with disabilities.
  

Up to three phones can be placed in one Reply Paid satchel (following the instructions on the satchel). For satchels please phone 1800 815 768. For more information go to the Mobile Phone Recycling website.

This is an Australia-only initiative, but there are lots of similar programs worldwide.

This is a very cool little hack. Bill Meikle from the LiveStage discussion list has hacked together some hardware and software to capture 360� video on the cheap.

Good on ya Bill – I’ll be keeping an eye on this and perhaps even building something similar in a few months – after I get my new PowerBook.

One year ago today, sometime in the afternoon, Quantas took me from Hobart and dropped me in Melbn. I didn’t want to go.

I had no money, I was leaving a beautiful place that I loved, with good people I also loved, I left my heart behind. I was going to a city I didn’t know anything about, and where I knew only two people, one of whom I’d never met before. I packed slowly in Hobart, I wanted to miss the plane and be stranded there with no money and no way to get to the mainland. But when the plane left, I was on it, and so was my stuff.

As the plane flew over country Victoria, I didn’t see the mountains and forests that I saw when flying over Tasmania. I saw flat. Flat flat. Boring flat. And a city far in the distance. We landed at Tullamarine and I was hit by the oppressive heat of a 40c day. After being used to the more temperate weather of Hobart, being in a hot place (at least for the short time that it was hot) was a shock.

My friend Janette met me at the gate, and after dropping off my stuff at her place, she gave me a confusing whirlwind tour of the city that evening. We ate gelato from that place on Lygon Street, and she gave me a place to sleep in her lounge room.

It was 2am. I was wide awake, naked and sweating. It was at least 25c outside, and I was laying on an air mattress, depressed and unable to sleep. My girlfriend would be arriving from England in a matter of days – she was in Hong Kong at that moment – expecting to find a guy who loved her. I thought then that if I had ever did, I didn’t anymore. My heart was in Hobart, and I was in Melbn. Unhappy, uncomfortable, and alone.

The next day was cooler. I got about 2 hours of sleep, from about 5:30am until 7:30. Janette drove me out to Knox, where I stayed with my friend Lisa and her husband Tony for a couple of weeks. My girlfriend joined me, and we moved to a boarding house in Parkville. I found a job and started repaying debts. After the inevitable happened and we broke up, I moved to Brunswick, then to Footscray before finally settling in Prahran. She went to Sydney, and eventually back home to Brighton. Melbn got cool, then warm again. My heart arrived in a package from Hobart one day, and I took it back and fixed it. I made some friends, bought some furniture, and applied for a longer term visa. I found someone who I like and who likes me back. Who knows what will happen there.

Thanks, Melbn. It’s been a year. Life goes on.

When was the last time you…

1. ...went to the doctor?

I went to the doctor last week – Monday I think – to deal with a minor ailment. No big deal. I’m going to a different doctor this coming Monday for an Australian Government Approved physical examination. Yet another hoop I need to jump through in order to stay here a while longer.

[Aside: I don’t talk much about this, because until a decision is made, I don’t think it’s right to get excited or nervous either way. I’ve applied with my employer for a 4-year woking visa. A decision is imminent. Believe me, gentle reader, you will know as soon as I do.]

2. ...went to the dentist?

It’s been more than a year. I had a fantastic dentist in Vancouver, a certain Dr Ow (I’m not kidding). He’s the only one who has ever had anything to do with my teeth, and I’m leery of letting anyone else near them. I’m going to have to soon, at least for a checkup.

3. ...filled your gas tank?

I don’t have a car. So the last time I filled up a tank would be of my “old” 2000 GTi the day before I sold it. Sigh. I miss that car.

4. ...got enough sleep?

When I was 12 years old. I plan to sleep a lot when I get older. I’ll be one of those old people that has naps a lot.

5. ...backed up your computer?

Oooh. Me bad. It’s been more than a month now. Thing is, Jet Girl (my iBook) has been busy downloading, um, things, overnight, so I can’t back her up.

Okay, I admit it. Jet’s been downloading season 1 of Duckman through BitTorrent.

The Mouse buys the Muppets. It’s all a bit sad, really. The original Muppet Show was so wonderfully nutty – I have doubts that the Walt Disney Company, with its tradition of being, well, somewhat plain, is really the right place for these guys.

1. The site is in black and white, like mine.
2. This interview with Arthur C Clarke.

Could someone please explain to me what the difference is between “a little rain” and “a few showers”?

One day I’ll stop obsessing about the wording used in The Age’s weather forecast, really. You can tell what kind of exciting life I lead by this frenetic obsessing I do about the weather. I need help.

Spammers are working harder and harder to get around clever spam filters. The mail program I use takes advantage of state of the art message filtering, as well as respecting whatever Retrix tells it about the junk mail possibilities. So, for a piece of spam to get through all that, it’s got to be pretty clever. Enter dada poetry.

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This is brilliant stuff. I think the dadaists would be amused at the way the spirit of their work is now being used.