David Edgar's website

Monday, 22 April 2024

Look. I am going to read the first Jack Reacher book now.

But only because Max Gladstone referred to it as "Murderbot for Dads", the kind of juxtaposition I am here for.

Guy at work said he and his fiancee are house hunting and having to decide between having a dog and location of the house because they can't afford both. Is time-sharing of dogs a service being offered to millennials? For $25 you can take a dog for a walk for an hour and play with it, throw a ball for it, and clean up its shits. I have two dogs and there are days I would pay someone to take one or both for $25 for an hour.

Friday, 12 April 2024

Colleagues were posting their pictures of the eclipse earlier this week and I thought to have a laugh by posting one as well, taken from Sydney.

So I googled “Sydney Moon” for some images I could use. I needed something like the bridge or the opera house in the image to make the joke obvious because it’s mostly Americans I’m dealing with here, they still have trouble with seasons.

Anyway, that’s how I learned there is an adult entertainer with that name.

Sunday, 07 April 2024

🔖 Airfoil

Fantastically detailed examination and explanation of how airfoils work.

Friday, 05 April 2024

I think I had this on tape at one point. triplej used to trot it out every now and then and I reckon I must have taped a Kingsmill presentation of it once. Such a fantastic show. Wish I’d been there instead of (checks notes) in high school two thousand kms north of Melbourne.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/live-at-the-wireless-on-double-j/nirvana-live-at-the-palace-melbourne-1992/103666970

Tuesday, 02 April 2024

Watching Laura Kampf sawing planks. Clearly too lazy to go get some saw horses, she’s just bracing them on her thigh and running the saw across her measured line. I couldn’t watch even though I can assume she never actually sawed her leg off.

Wednesday, 27 March 2024

I Have Bad Praxis part one million: just yelled at a bus driver because he’d pulled up at the wrong stand, down the far end of the station, and I almost missed him pulling out because I was at the correct stand. Driver made a simple mistake.

Sigh.

Wednesday, 13 March 2024

Gruber says:

The whole point of the DMA is the EC asserting that they know better than Apple (and Google) how phones should work

You know, for better or worse, that reckon the DMA might just be the EC asserting they know better than Apple and Google how civil society should work.

I know who I’m more likely to place my faith in.

Tuesday, 12 March 2024

🔖 Gen Z Beowulf

Wednesday, 06 March 2024

🔖 How To Be A Good Listener

Advice on how to listen to people. I don't want to say "effectively" because that sounds reductive and transactional. But how to listen with purpose to actually make connections with people . In summary:

  1. Don't negate what they are saying
  2. Don't make it about yourself
  3. Don't walk down, particularly to children
  4. Ask questions

Some of what she says I summarised a bit; a couple of the points were basically "Don't make it abut yourself" but from different angles.

🔖 Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

Kate Wagner, author of McMansion Hell, is sent by Road and Track, to do a piece on F1. Wagner has positive impressions of a driver, Lewis Hamilton, neutral impressions of the sport, and negative views of the rich, high-status people in the same audience areas as herself. Road and Track actually took the article off their website an hour after publishing it and at time of bookmarking there is very little context as for why. The explanations given by the editor in chief don't make much sense even to me, a non-media person.

Saturday, 02 March 2024

Every time I encounter a seppo payment system that refuses to accept my four digit postcode I stop to wonder if banks just accept 90210 as a wildcard.

Friday, 23 February 2024

🔖 Preserved Figs

Monday, 12 February 2024

Nothing highlights the pure theatre of ISO 27001 quite like correctly answering all of the questions in the mandatory security training but being chased personally eight months later for not watching each second of the videos from which one was supposed to discover the answers to the questions.

Sunday, 11 February 2024

I somehow seem to each year pick a side I kinda want to see win in the Super Bowl despite normally believing it is a very silly, boring sport.

NGL this year it’s the team whose victory will piss off the most Americans.

🔖 A unified theory of fucks

I had a similar theory, about not caring about things more than the people who are intrinsically motivated to care. Mandy's make so much more sense.

Friday, 09 February 2024

🔖 Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, or, “Looking for the Mouse”

Clay Shirky (inorite) yammers on about finding ways to divert surplus brain cycles into something he considers productive. Feels like there is some morsels in it despite...you know...Shirky.

🔖 Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid In The Omelas Hole

Friday, 02 February 2024

🔖 Balancing Engineering Cultures: Debate Everything vs. Just Tell Me What To Build

🔖 How to build a small solar power system

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