Makenosound

February Recent Reads

2012-02-07T00:00:00+11:00

Taking a leaf out of my mate Nathan’s book, here are some articles I’ve been reading of late:

Nadal vs. Djokovic: Here We Are Again, My Friend

Brian Phillips on “the epic warfare of tennis’ big three”. It’s hard to believe it can get much better than the final of this year’s Australian Open.

A man, a ball, a hoop, a bench (and an alleged thread)

How a small but beautiful trick illuminates the mind of a master magician: Teller.

Funny money

How counterfeiting led to a major overhaul of Canada’s money and how Australia was forced to lead the way in anti-counterfeit technology.

Rebecca Coriam: lost at sea

If the Costa Concordia disaster isn’t enough to put you off a cruise, this article about mysterious disappearances on ships in the last decade will be.

The Book of Jobs

Or, “A Banking System is Supposed to Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around”.

Podcasts worth my time

2012-01-06T00:00:00+11:00

I’ve been listening to podcasts regularly since I first got my hands on an iPhone about four years ago, and it’s remarkably hard to find consistently good and consistently interesting shows. Finding good podcasts is hard. It takes a lot of time to determine whether any given one is worth your time. And so, to save you the trouble of searching through iTunes for hours on end, here are the podcasts I listen to with at least some regularity.

Science

Radiolab

Highly (sometimes overly) produced, always interesting mashups of cultural and science discussion.
The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe

Skeptical, science-y discussion from New England. A great way to keep up with what’s happening in the science world in general.

Tech-related

The Talk Show

John Gruber¹ talks to Dan Benjamin about tech/Apple stuff. If you don’t like Gruber’s writing, you probably won’t like The Talk Show.
Build and Analyze

Marco Arment (of Instapaper fame) discussing coffee, SUVs, office space, and occasionally business and web/iOS development.
Hypercritical

John Siracusa complaining about technology-related stuff. I admire his anal-retentive nature even though aspire to never be that way.
The B&B Podcast

Shawn Blanc and Ben Brooks chat about mostly tech-y stuff. I’ve only just started listening to The B&B Podcast. Not sure whether it’ll make it into my regular playlist yet.

Dan Benjamin’s 5by5 network has a host of other shows that are probably worth listening too as well, I just haven’t had a chance to try them all yet.

Misc

This American Life

If you’ve never come across This American Life before then you’re obviously very new to the world of podcasting. This American Life is the podcast. It’s been running for nearly 17 years and gets over 400,000 listeners for each weekly episode. With good reason too, their hour long shows are always fantastically produced and never fail to be interesting.
Tank Riot

Three dudes from Wisconsin talking shit². Their sometimes 2-hour long episodes cover topics from conspiracy theories to zombie films.
Planet Money

Short, weekly shows on financial things. Economics can be fun and interesting. Who knew?
Back to Work

Yet another 5by5 show, this one features Merlin Mann being crazy (and inspiring).
The Ihnatko Almanac

Andy Ihnatko (noted tech writer) chatting about a wide range on stuff. Including but not limited to: science fictions novels, comic book fonts, and the MIT Flea Market.
The Incomparable

The topic of discussion on The Incomparable ranges wildly: books, film, music, television, you name it. I don’t listen every show, but I do check in to see what they’re talking about each week in case there’s one that interests me.

Australian

The ABC do an unbelievable job of making their content available online, and this includes most of their first-party content from television and radio as podcasts. I tend to catch up on their TV shows using the excellent iview for iPad (streamed via AirPlay), so the only ABC podcast I regularly listen to is:

By Design

Radio National’s Alan Saunders on the design of anything and everything.

Sadly By Design is the only Australian podcast I’ve found interesting enough to keep coming back. I’d love to find more.

Comedy

Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me

I’ve just discovered Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me. It’s a light, fun quiz show from National Public Radio that usually covers the week’s events in an amusing way.
Maniacal Rage

The now seemingly defunct Maniacal Rage podcast is one of my favourites. Featuring Garrett Murray and Shawn Morrison being insane, it’s well worth going back through the archives to see what you missed out on.
You Look Nice Today

Alas, now also dead it seems. You Look Nice Today is one of the few podcasts that have made me laugh out loud. Go back and listen to every episode.
The Ricky Gervais Podcast

Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant, and Karl Pilkington being funny. It’s not published regularly any more, but every now and again a new one pops up.

Instacast

If you like to listen to podcasts on your iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, then no doubt you hate hate hate managing them through iTunes. Instacast is everything you could hope for and more in a podcasting app. Download it now and thank me later.

If you’re on an Android phone (or Instacast isn’t your thing) then Shifty Jelly’s Pocket Casts might be a goer.

So that’s my list. Podcasts are very much a question of personal taste – The Girl™ can’t listen to (almost) any of the above without complaining about the American voices – and thus your mileage may vary.

If you have suggestions for other shows worth checking out let me know via email or Twitter. Even with my relatively long list it’s hard to fill up a full week’s worth of listening content. I need more!

Occassionally heavily intoxicated.
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Always heavily intoxicated.
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Bank Stupid

2012-01-04T00:00:00+11:00

In the last year I’ve had to deal with financial institutions more than I would like. I filled in countless of forms, and handed over literally hundreds of documents about my current financial status, and here’s what I’ve learned: everything about this system is a nightmare, and if you’re self-employed it’s a thousand times worse.

Today I tried to apply for a credit card. I already have a credit card mind you, but I wanted one with the same bank our home loan is with so I could transfer money to it without a business-day delay. Easy-peasy right? When I was 18 and earning less than $15,000 a year I was getting offered credit cards with $5,000 limits from multiple banks.

My financial setup is a little complicated, so I’ll spare you the boring bits. The long and short of it is this: because I part-own the business that employs me, I’m technically “self-employed” and so I’d need to provide two years of financial records for the company. Had I been an employee of some random (or even the same) small business, then all I’d have needed was my two most recent pay slips and confirmation from my employer that I worked where I said I did. I had similar problems when applying our home loan, and all because I have a stake in the business.

“Apparently being in control of your own destiny is so foreign to the worker drones in bank-land that they cannot comprehend it.”

– Mikey’s thoughts on the issue¹

We’re being punished for choosing to create our own wealth; for having some measure of control over our income; for not fitting the standard model that banks would like to see. And the madness is that their risk is less, not more. As an owner, I’m in the driver’s seat, and have the potential to make significantly more than my standard salary. As an employee I’m a passenger who can be pushed out the door at any time.

I understand that banks need do their due diligence when lending people money. And I know the consequences when they don’t. But there’s has to be a better way. The market is ripe for disruption. People are crying out for a bank to give them a compelling experience. To actually help them achieve their financial goals, to really facilitate the day-to-day running of their lives and businesses.

If nothing changes then today’s banks are dead companies walking.

Mikey’s home-loan story is even more ridiculous. His bank would lend his partner the money, but not the two of them together because his “self-employment” was too risky. Derp.
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Winding down, gearing up

2011-12-31T00:00:00+11:00

I’ve never bothered putting together a year in review post before. Usually by year’s end my only aim is to watch cricket and do as little as possible to recover and prepare for the year ahead. I’m still watching the cricket, but this year has been one of many milestones (personal and professional) for me so I figure it’s time to start the tradition of recording the events and notable projects of the 12 months now gone.

Here goes:

January

After the Xmas break in Byron Bay I spent the entirety of January filling in forms and sourcing every piece of financial information about my life. Which was all in aid of what happened in February…

February

We bought a house! Well, we made the bank buy us a house! After a few months of scouring the (horrific) property websites, endless paperwork (seriously), and an inordinately large sum of money we became the owners of a Federation-era house in Melbourne’s north.

March

I started writing a book. Dobbed-in by Tim Lucas, I was put in touch with the team at Sitepoint who wanted a designer-type to help with a publication on designing and building websites for mobile devices. The deadlines were short, and I unprepared, but it was a great opportunity to try my hand at writing something of substance (instead of, you know, making pretty pictures). So I said “Yes” and began the two busiest months of my life. I was still working full time during the day – though my colleagues were very supportive of the book, we were too busy for me to take much time off – and so every evening, after work, I’d write. And write. And procrastinate. And then write some more. I’d write until 1 or 2am then get up at 6am for work. Rinse, repeat for 8 weeks. I’m not sure how Lexi managed to simultaneously keep me alive and not murder me, but I’m grateful for both.

I am not a natural-born writer. Writing is hard. Writing something coherent (never mind interesting) takes me an enormous quantity of mental space. I have to fill my brain with all the bits until the words end up falling out. My process was simple: read everything I could find, write as much as possible, realise the night’s work was mostly rubbish (save for a paragraph or two), and then trash most of it. After a while those bits started to make sense together.
With the help of Jim Whimpey I launched TumblrThemr, a little tool for making Tumblr theme development less of a nightmare and more of a pleasure.

April

I wrote. 35,143 words to be precise. In 9 weeks.
I played the 2011 Australian Ultimate Championships with Fyshwick United.

May

I slept.

Actually that’s not true at all. May/June is the busiest time of year at Icelab so I worked. A lot.

June

My book was published! You can buy it and everything!
Icelab launched a couple of big projects at the National Museum of Australia. In the past we’ve built touchscreen interactives for the NMA using Flash, but I hate working with Flash and so for these two projects – Flemington on Cup Day and Exploring the world at Port Macquarie – we built them using nothing but HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They were initially deployed in the NMA’s new Landmarks gallery running as full screen, kiosk-mode Chrome-only websites.

We also put the finishing touches on a new site for the Museum of Australian Democracy.

July

I became a director and equal part-owner of Icelab (along with Tim and Mikey). I’d been a minority shareholder in Icelab for a while, but with Tim on board we all decided to make Icelab (legally) our thing, and so we did.

August

I had reconstructive surgery on a ligament in my wrist. Frisbee is a dangerous sport I tells ya.
Icelab launched Discovering Mildenhall’s Canberra, an exhibition of the Mildenhall photographs, a collection of photos from the birth of Canberra.
We moved to Melbourne. After living in Canberra for 12 years on the trot it was time for a change. And so, apropos of not very much, we left behind our families, friends and well established lives, and moved into our not-so-newly purchased house!

September

I spent all my money at Bunnings (a gigantic hardware store for you non-antipodeans). As soon as you own a house, you have a compulsion to go to hardware stores and literally throw money at them. We did this every weekend in September, and while it has slowed a touch since then I still have to resist the urge to buy various pieces of wood/metal whose function is still a mystery to me.
I spoke at What Do You Know, a Web Directions sideshow. A little five-minute preso on the Flemington on Cup Day interactive.
Icelab, thanks mostly to the hard work of Tim Riley, launched an iPhone app for Decaf Sucks! Making it easier than ever to find yourself a decent espresso vendor (or warn others of an impending disaster).
I spoke at Swipe Conference. The first of this (hopefully) annual event for iOS and Mac developers was held in Melbourne, conveniently timed just after my move south, and I gave an hour-long presentation on Designing for the mobile web.
After much hair-tearing from Hugh Evans in making my code cross-browser, the two NMA interactives went live online. Filled with CSS transition-y goodness they’re accessible, beautiful and hopefully a little fun.
1. Exploring the world at Port Macquarie
2. Flemington on Cup Day

October

I was selected on the Australian Men’s team for next year’s World Ultimate Club Championships (also known at the Dingoes). It took nearly 12 months of selections and training.

November

Icelab launched the new ticketing system (and website) for The Corner Hotel. One of our largest and most complex projects to date.
Icelab completed our first year of Dispatch: the little coffee subscription service that could. Sending out little caffeinated packages to people around the country turned out to be immensely satisfying.

December

Icelab launched a little site for Behind the Lines, an exhibition of the year’s best political cartoons.
I collapsed in a heap. Possibly related to overwork, possibly due to an excess of Christmas ham (the increase in my waistline over the last 2 weeks would seem to suggest the latter).

2011 has been the most exhausting, busiest, and best year of my life. I’ve been lucky enough work with great people at Icelab (and other great people too); do some great, unexpected things; and I’ve spent another year with the wonderful girl (and our slightly “special” dog).

Here’s to a 2012 that’s even better.