April 30, 2008
Iconic Australian Houses: Three Decades of Domestic Architecture by Karen McCartney looks like a feast for the eyes even if you’re not an architect. (And I’m not.) Dan Hill has a comprehensive review on his City of Sound blog.
Dan also mentions a book by Elizabeth Farrelly called Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness, which asks questions about our inability to change our excessive habits.
Iconic Australian Houses is out of stock on Amazon US, but Blubberland’s available (and cheap). Might try to find them both at one of these supposedly great Melbourne art and architecture bookstores, unless someone buys them for me first :-)
Posted by Marty in Web design
April 28, 2008
Posted by Marty in Moblogging
April 24, 2008
Posted by Marty in Moblogging
The Economist has a special report about technology enabling a new wave of nomadism:
The articles tie in nicely (for me, at any rate) with some of Dan Hill’s recent notes about trends and progress in mass transport.
One quote in the Labour Movement article really struck a chord with me:
Today “people judge what they should achieve by what they could achieve,” says Mr Katz (a professor at Rutgers University), and with our new technologies we can always theoretically achieve more. People thus “feel inadequate compared with the enormous opportunity they have”.
I certainly feel that way. I think to myself: you’re smart, why haven’t you dreamt up something like Get Satisfaction yet?
Maybe my time is still to come, maybe not. Either way, I’m along for the ride.
Posted by Marty in Web & Tech
April 21, 2008
With the Aussie snow season just around the corner I thought I’d pay ski.com.au a quick visit, you know, just to check on the latest news and stuff. Maybe get a bit stoked up for the season. Ignore the naysayers on the forums who predict shitty seasons year after year.
But this is the first thing I saw:
Australian ski lift prices now highest in the world
Australian ski lift prices are now the highest in the world, according to an annual survey by the Australian Alpine Club.
Adult day ski lift prices at five major Australian alpine resorts were benchmarked against eleven resorts in seven other developed countries. The survey did not try to compare other factors such as terrain, snow-depths or ski lift capacities.
2008 lift prices (A$)
$98 Perisher Blue
$97 Thredbo
$94 Falls Creek
$94 Mt Buller
$94 Mt Hotham
$92 Vail (USA)
$91 Alta Snowbird (USA)
$85 Deer Valley (USA)
$85 Whistler (Canada)
$77 St Moritz (Switz)
$74 Mt Hutt (NZ)
$72 Val D’Isere (France)
$71 Arlberg (Austria)
$66 Klosters (Switz)
$56 Niseko (Japan)
$48 Hakuba 47 (Japan)
(15/04/2008 exchange rates, rounded to nearest A$)
Hmmm.
With halfway-decent on-mountain accommodation for a couple (no kids) coming in at more than $250 a night in July/August, a week’s snow holiday at Falls Creek would easily cost us more than $2,500.
Now I love Falls Creek. I’ve had some great stays up there. The village is awesome and the nightlife’s great, even if you’re a crusty old Gen Xer like me. But it gets 2 metres of snow for the season (in a good year), and most of the runs are short and shallow. I know this is debated on the ski.com.au forums every year, but I can never remember why the tickets are so pricey.
Maybe I’ll just go surfing instead. :-(
Posted by Marty in Random thoughts
Twitter/steverubel pointed me to these two sites today: Office Snapshots and Home Office Snapshots. My fave is Six Apart, and this purple one. It’s just a shame that it’s purple.
The Six Apart office
Posted by Marty in Not important, but potentially interesting, Web & Tech, Web design
April 17, 2008
If I ever want a quick laugh at work I just fire up icanhascheezburger.com. Info about Lolcats on wikipedia here.
Posted by Marty in Not important, but potentially interesting, Web & Tech
