Currency parity and your home library

Yep, my AUD$50 worth of books arrived from Amazon yesterday. The AUD$48 freight I had to pay meant that I would have actually been ahead if I'd bought the books here. The only advantage is that I only had to wait 3 weeks instead of the 8 weeks if I'd ordered them through my local bookstore.

But then again, I'd have been able to buy twice as many. Hmmm ... there's a moral in there somewhere.
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A landmark day!

Today, as far as I know, I didn't get into trouble. Of course, I may well find out differently tomorrow. Sometimes I don't find out for several months, which I guess illustrates that old saying about ill winds and blowing no good. Or maybe it's the silver cloud thing? Although at times ...

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. " Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Although London and Sydney are half a world apart, I guess wind is wind. Excuse me.

How important is the truth?

From the diary of SAM (Sydney [University] Alumni Magazine) is January 14 2011: Festival Cafe ... a glass of wine, a bite to eat and an animated discussion on a recurring them of the (Sydney) Festival theme: When we tell a story, how important is the truth?

Tickets from usual agents. Over 18s only. (It doesn't say why .... too much cheese? Or too much animation?)
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The Worst Librarian Ad Ever?

Facebook can be interesting from a wide range of angles, including the auto-feed advertisements. These are "tailored" to each individual log-in and supposedly "smart" from the perspective of AI. The ads are selected on the basis of keywords that a user ... ummm ... uses.

So my log-in produces a side bar of ads for items such as shoes (who'd have thought?), books (duh!), hugely expensive holidays in exotic places (a girl's gotta have dreams, right?), and now, through the power of Artificial Intelligence, programming algorithms, and probably a splash of witchcraft - I'm now getting fed ads on becoming a librarian.

OK, we can all do with professional developing, and there's always new fields opening up in cataloguing (yep, that's a pun). But I'd be hesitant to rush off and sign up for anything as a result of this particular ad. I did check into the identity of the advertisers, and was more than a touch surprised. You'd have thought They could have done a little better in the PR department.

Just a thought.
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Column 8, Strike 3?

From Sydney Morning Herald of 24th November 2010



From Sydney Morning Herald of 23rd October 2010




From Sydney Morning Herald of 24th August 2010


That's three times in four months (twice as the lead); is this a record? Will they offer me my own regular column? The great Erma Bombeck started with the obits ...
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