Veronika Wild

Sunflower season   How odd. It seems we only had a couple summer days and now it's grey and drizzly and just a little bit sad. No doubt there will still be some blazing summer days and then I'll complain about the heat, but I have seen the first thistledown tumbling by and these sunflowers today and they make me think that winter is just around the corner. I am about to be separated for my computer for a couple of weeks and you may not hear anything from me. Don't despair though. I will be back, Cheers for now, Roni

A couple of months ago when I had such an appalling internet connection that I could only get on the net between 4 and 6 a.m. and not at all when the gamers were busy over the weekend, I cast about longingly for open networks with far greater connectivity than I had. There weren't any of course, but some really interesting names.I used to get the Cat Network, Happy Home and a couple of  other rather witty ones, but now only Bubbles and Suddenly a Wild Internet remain. Mine will be one of those boring ones that just says Optus#zyzzzz#@!!# and has really poor connectivity I only thought of looking them up again because of an article in yesterdays Age by Peter Munro * who turned up an interesting collection on a Wifi walk around Melbourne. How about "Asio Van" or "YourKidsAreUgly"  or maybe "I'm Watching You Sleep?" There is even an interactive map. He also lists a website devoted to same http://wtfwifi.com/?id=67 where you can vote fo...

More crazy weather. I wonder where the climate change deniers have been living? Today we had a very humid 34oC earlier in the day, followed by a hail storm which did little to relieve the heat. Just now though at 1 a.m. we have had what amounts to a tropical thunderstorm.  Here’s what we are supposed to be having at this time of year. It comes from a website entitled   “The facts about Tasmania’s weather http://www.tww.id.au/tas/climate.html ). The data, extracted from the web pages of the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology , is based on Hobart. The Tasmanian East Coast is milder, the West Coast wetter and the NW Coast windier. Yearly Mean Rainfall (mm) Highest total first Mean Daily Minimum Temperature °C Month of July Coldest city first Mean Daily Maximum Temperature °C Month of January Warmest city first Cairns 2,007 Canberra 0.0 Alice Springs 35.5 Darwin 1,666 ...

These are just their clothes There is glitter in the bath and a trail of destruction through the house. There is every indication that a natural disaster has taken place. The little girls are in residence. All three of them. They have taken over the bedroom Over Christmas I happened to mention to my older son how my big sister used to tickle me unmercifully until I agreed to do the dishes for a week or any other unpleasant task she could think of. “What a great idea!” he remarked enthusiastically, “I could see them deploying that at Guatanamo to extract secrets from enemy combatants.  It wouldn’t leave any traces either.” Well, I have another rendition technique for those so inclined. Just leave them alone with a toddler and two small girls for a while and they will confess all. Grind them down with sleep deprivation, the constant noise and the chaos and the state of perpetual emergency and they will soon become quivering, malleable wrecks. It certainly causes ...

The good news is that Eli Pariser's "Filter Bubble" concerns may be diminished under new a innovation by Google  see Has Google Popped the Filter Bubble? You can also diminish your exposure by using the following tips:  http://www.thefilterbubble.com/10-things-you-can-do On the negative side, green groups have come under increased surveillance here in Australia, both electronic and otherwise with the government contracting private companies to do the work. Nor is Australia alone in this. Crikey's Bernard Keane has been bugging the buggers and kindly provided a link to bugged planet which shows all the companies involved in tracking down those pesky dissidents. However, "The list does not include internet monitoring and censorship operations undertaken under contract to intelligence agencies (which are kept from the public and available only to MPs on request) or law enforcement bodies such as police forces" such as the one above." ...

Saw these friendly blokes filling in two enormous holes outside the Hill Street Reservoir  As I went past they were joking about leaving the other one overnight to see how many pedestrians they could catch.  The pickings would have been good. There's a pub on the other side of the road.  They were working really hard as I came up the road, but when I got there they stopped work to let me pass. Classic Road Worker pose It reminded me of a little skit I once saw on one of those ABC comedy shows. The first scene showed the road workers hard at work. Then one calls out "Quick! Someone's coming!." After that, they all settled back, leaned on their shovels and pretended to be doing nothing until the person had passed. When I told them about that, they obliged me with the above picture in suitable pose. They did leave the other big hole, but by the time I came back from the shop it had a big barrier around it. Nice work fellas!

Smoking indoors, in workplaces, bars and restaurants was banned here years ago. Victoria has just banned smoking on its beaches and Tasmania recently banned smoking at sporting venues, bus malls and outdoor cafes. In Qld. There is some kind of law about not smoking in public parks or within so many metres of schools. While I agree that smoking is a nasty habit,  never smoke indoors, detest smoking in public and always bin my butts, I don't see why if we can have injecting rooms for other addicts, we can't have pleasant civilised smoking rooms like they do in Estonia. I really liked some of the comments that followed this article. For example: "I presume all the self-righteousness evidenced here is coming totally from non-drivers? Because I feel just the same way about your car emissions as you do about my smoking folks – it’s a filthy disgusting polluting habit and all motorists have absolute contempt for pedestrians and deliberately run them over (see? stupid genera...

"I wish I had your worries," said my oldest son, when I was complaining about my present lack of focus and direction. "Then again," he added, "My worries would seem trivial to an African too." In consequence he's just sent me an excellent upbeat article about how well Australia has done on a number of social and economic indicators over the last twenty years in comparison with other OECD countries, but also poses the question," If we have never had it so good, why aren’t we deliriously happy?" Certainly, I would not want to be in Africa right now, or even the mean streets of Britain or the USA, but I am a bit tired of people telling me how great things are and how lucky we are. Although our individual troubles may seem trivial in comparison, I think they can be summed up as follows: Firstly, it’s really hard to sing and dance and kick up your heels while you see others suffer      Secondly, averages disguise great inequaliti...

There have been a couple of very interesting programs on our National Broadcaster. Since these two about food are from the UK, you should be able to get them there on one of the BBC's. If you have ever wondered what goes into making commercially produced food, try "Jimmy's Food Factory" on ABC 1 at 8 p.m. on Thursdays. It is both scientific and entertaining. I caught an epsiode about making Low Fat Mayonnaise and I don't think I will be using it again. JIMMY'S FOOD FACTORY: PACKED LUNCH Hobart TV Guide for ABC1 (Channel 2) Watch out also for the next episode of "The People's Supermarket." The People's Supermarket, Thursday, January 5 www.smh.com.au The People's Supermarket, Thursday, January 5 This link was shared by The Ethical Consumer Group This is about one man's struggle to breathe some life into an empty shop in his UK main street by opening a supermarket and inviting people to take up shares in it. In the episode ...

Aussie Brian Schmidt may have discovered the accelerating expanding universe, but I have discovered the filter in the heating and cooling system here. The little girls are due to arrive here tomorrow so I have been busy cleaning and baby -proofing the place.  I was down on my hands and knees looking for the old paper clips and stray buttons that babies always manage to find, when I noticed that there was fluff poking out of the grille on the heater. I am always a bit nervous about taking apart things electrical, especially since I killed the piezo switch on the stovetop by cleaning it, so Hallelujah! I looked it up in the manual. It said that the power should be turned off and the filter should be cleaned every two weeks.   Interesting. I have been home for a year now and never knew it existed and by the look of it - it looked like a layer of thick felt insulation, I would say that none of the previous owners ever knew it existed either. The manual said vacuum lightl...

I was strangely pleased to see this  You don't see it much any more. A gaggle of children just playing outside together and amusing themselves with very little in the way of equipment or supervision. If you told them they had to climb up that hill forty times to enjoy the brief thrill of sliding and tumbling down, they would never do it. My daughter and her little friends just loved it when they were little and I confess to having enjoyed it too. There just aren't too many opportunities these days, especially in an urban environment. Just before Christmas, when my friend and I were looking at toys, I was saying how I didn't like things that were 'too finished' and preferrred more open - ended things, which stimulated children to think of things themselves. I told him that one of the best and cheapest presents my sons had, was a piece of rope with which they could swing down from their cubbies, tie pirates to the mast, tow things etc.etc. "Yes," said m...