A list of links to things you might want to read/watch/listen to, to things that could be informative and to things that may make you laugh. This is what I have been upto this week.
What I have been listening to:
ABC News Radio – supposedly 585 AM in Perth but takes me god damned forever to tune into on the radio. Going to try to see if I can get it on the Discman since both radio tuners seem to not want to work. I can only get ABC 720 but I kind of want all news all the time at the moment. Hmm… wonder what the BBC World Service frequency is (though I was under the impression it came through on 585 AM).
Nouvelle Vague who have put out Nouvelle Vague 3 (Limited Edition) (Incl. 3 bonus tracks) – stay tuned for a review in the future for RTR FM.
What I have been reading in print:
Terry Pratchett’s latest offering in the Discworld series: Unseen Academicals. Love it. Read the review I wrote here. I haven’t had much time to read any other books, though I did finally get around to reading Sophie’s World a couple of weeks ago and I will review that as soon as possible for Compendium.
The West Australian – it’s all cricketers and dodgy driving license decisions and WA scientists winning Nobel Prizes in today’s (Oct 7th) print edition.
What I have been reading online:
Comics, graphic novels and webcomics:
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- Canadian riot a minute Menage a 3,
- Jeph Jacques’ Questionable Content which is my daily opportunity to laugh at how mainstream ‘Indie’ can be for which I love QC,
- Malaysian talent Eisu’s No Pink Ponies which I have gotten into the habit of refreshing just in case he may have updated it,
- Bobby Crosby & Eisu’s Marry Me which I read solely because the lead male ‘Guy’ is a Clark Kent fetish to behold (actually I’ll read any comic Eisu draws),
- comic gurus (they’ve been doing this for 20 odd years) Kaja and Phil Foglio’s steampunk wonder Girl Genius,
- Giz’s Eerie Cuties which has just started and looks awesome,
- K. B. Spangler’s A Girl and her Fed which has a talking koala, the ghost of Benjamin Franklin and civil rights all in one,
- Bobby Crosby’s occasional Sunday updating +EV which is about poker, and,
- Mookie’s (who could be a Clark Kent himself) Dominic Deegan – Oracle For Hire, with aforementioned lead character Dominic being a bit of a cross between a male Cassandra, Doctor Who and again an awesome Clark Kent. Once caught up on the archives, it takes all of half an hour each day to check up on the updates to these comics. There are other comics that are now no longer updating – Pantheon being an awesome example, I really wish that one went further.
Weblogs:
This week I have gotten, for some unknown reason, hooked on reading The Digital Clownfish by K. B. Spangler (she of A Girl and her Fed fame). It’s a blog about keeping saltwater reef fish as a hobby – you won’t believe the things I have learnt about filters and fish species and the problems with marine snails. Lest you think that’s all I have been reading , fear thou not. But it is what I would recommend to you this week.
Websites:
Brain Rules. This is a book by Jon Medina (which I have not read yet) but it also has a website with videos and flash tutorials. Basically, the brain rules refer to the 12 things scientists are most sure of when it comes to how the brain works. These are theories that have been tested, peer reviewed and tested repeatedly with the same results each time. The purpose of the book is to show that the results of these theories show us that our brain works very differently to the way we have assumed that it does. We assume that our brain learns a certain way and design our education systems around that, when it actually doesn’t help us to learn very much at all. So since teachers, politicians and those who design educational and workplace systems don’t often get to talk to neuroscientists, Medina wrote the book. On the website you can go through the tutorials, learn about the rules, find out why and how they work and then get suggestions on how to improve your memory and the rate at which you learn.
Science Network WA. Mostly, I have been trawling through the site, reading all the articles because I may or may not be writing on a somewhat permanent yet freelance basis for them soon. Maybe.
What I have been playing:
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- Zeus with the Poseidon Expansion – old game, building cities, fighting monsters, fulfilling quests, appeasing gods. Pretty awesome graphics and tons of great humour from the quest explanations to the little animations to the things your citizens will tell you when you right click on them. Part of Sierra’s city building strategy game series. Pharoah + Cleopatra Expansion is another in the series which is equally awesome and is in fact my favourite in the series simply because it takes you right through the entire history of Egypt and is factually and historically accurate. The others are Caesar I, II and III all of which in comparision are boring and Emperor of The Middle Kingdom which is set in China but I have never played it.
- The Adventures of Willy Beamish – old school adventure game – trying it out but not entirely sure what I think of it just yet. Downloadable for free from the link.
- Amazon: Guardians of Eden – the first old DOS based adventure game that I have seen that does not have a quit button/dialog command. Very weird. Looks promising from when I fired it up briefly in DOSBOX today but moving the character around is a bit annoying. Also downloadable for free from the link.
- 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – based off the Jules Verne novel, have yet to even look at this one. Hopefully it is interesting. Again, downloadable for free. By the way, I have played tons of adventure games already, which is why I am trying out these ones, so yeah suggest any if you want but I may already have played them. The last time I made a list of all the games I had played I was batting a hundred plus.
What I have been watching:
The Thunderbirds DVD Collection I am afraid to say (what did you not realise that I am a rare breed: Homo sapiens geekus femininae? Also known as a geek goddess 
– apologies for the crap Latin). I am enjoying it. So is the cat. She loves watching the screen when Thunderbird 1 and Thunderbird 3 take off and she keeps looking behind the TV to see where they have gone when they go off screen.
The most serious thing I have found out this week:
As reported in the West Australian (print edition – seems to be nowhere on the online site – not a good move) today that two Sri Lankan asylum seekers in Australia were sent back to SL where upon landing in Colombo, they were assaulted by SL Police. Also, that the Supreme Court in Australia has now delayed the deportment of several SL asylum seekers pending it’s decision over whether these people will be harmed when they set foot in SL. The Australian Government is obliged by international and federal law to ensure that it doesn’t deport anyone if they will be harmed when they are sent back to their country of origin. However the Australian Government is having trouble determining whether these specific people will be targeted on landing in SL. They thought they wouldn’t be but now two people they did deport have been assaulted. So now the Supreme Court is trying to find out if it was just these two people or whether the rest will be targeted as well and whether or not they need to reassess the risk of sending people back for every individual in this group. They can’t let an asylum seeker stay in Australia if they aren’t being genuinely persecuted or are not suffering genuine financial hardship unless they go through proper immigration procedures. Trying to prove that an individual is being genuinely persecuted or is genuinely suffering financial hardship can be sometimes wonderfully easy to do and sometimes downright difficult.
The funniest thing I found out about this week:
There was a disturbance on the Kwinana Freeway which heads south from Perth. The police were called out to sort it out. For some reason people heading south in their cars were being prevented from doing so. So the cops went to check it out.
The reason people couldn’t drive their cars southwards on the freeway was because there were no less than 12 horses galloping northwards in the southbound lane. Horses. 12 of them.
The newspaper had a good laugh about it. It took four patrol cars to stop the horses and corral them more or less on the freeway but after heavy interrogation the horses still refused to say where they escaped from. The police want anyone who has found their horses missing from the back paddock to call the Kwinana Council. Again, the West Australian hasn’t put the story up on the website though if you subscribe to what they call the “digital edition” of the paper you get the paper in pdf format and can see it there.
Hope you enjoyed the link list love and the consumer report. ;-D
Cheers, Marisa.
Yay. Nouvelle Vague. Nice set of links Marisa, thanks.