Virtual Jonathan

Frag the Cloud

2011-07-05T16:14:00.004+08:00

It's interesting to discuss device fragmentation on a platform like Android, and to wonder how scalable a mobile operating system is. Similarly, if we look at cloud services as an OS then Google+, Google Music, and other attempts by the search giant to "organize the world's information" seem a little disorganized. This is not a criticism, but a personal observation of my experience as a human being trying to get my head around everything that the technology world is throwing at us at the moment.

Apple is preparing iCloud for launch, but in the meantime I've uploaded my 20,000 song limit to Google Music, and I have to admit that a useful lateral approach to listening to and discovering neglected music in my library. However, it currently doesn't scale to the size of my library, so it's not a complete solution. On the hardware/software side, iTunes doesn't scale for large libraries, even if all of a user's media is stored locally, as its database needs to rewrite itself entirely every time a song is played.

Google+ has been an interesting experiment to start out with, but the cupboard seems frighteningly bare compared to the kinds of social information that I can feed into Facebook via various mobile apps. There's still no way to centralize all of my media data, such as my reading lists, on Google+, and you really have to dig on Facebook to find that, too. Facebook used to offer various widgety features that you could display on your profile, but they've responded my stripping everything back to its bare bones. On the flipside, Google seems to be starting off Google+ with only the bare essentials.

As a result, I have a fragmented music library, and a fragmented "system" of recording and sharing important social information. The cloud is not going to answer my problems, as I'm not prepared to pay for access to media that I already own locally. Seriously, how is it convenient to be poorer to access what you already possess? This may be why Apple is adopting a hybridized view of cloud services as "push to local", as opposed to everything living in, and being subject to being held hostage in, the cloud.

But I plead with you - Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft... start looking at all of these projects that you have on your books and then "zoom out" and maybe get an idea of what it all looks like to your consumers. Maybe what we really need is a post-Google company to organize all of the information presented to us by the company who are trying to organize all of the information?

Lord of the Files*

2010-12-17T09:11:00.000+08:00

LORD OF THE FILES*

Master of this isle of information emphatic
Your cloudy computing shall never begoogle me -
My property is static.

I will not pay the ferryman
Coin nor compliment
My house has excellent plumbing
Paid up front, unburdened with rent.

I will not be held hostage
Just to access what is mine
Your thin client is a thinly veiled lie
To woo the client benign.

Yet I am not on the fence;
The bleeding edge; the adopter's cusp
Even from this distance
I can smell the novelty lust.

I will not dwell in the Adlands for you
Thus vesting rights so feudal
I'll not be a serf who surfs and toils
For lord and lady Google.

Hence, spare me the guise of the fair and just
And your Googley Goggleyes
You'll never have all my data
For I am the Lord of the Files.

*This hypocritical document was edited on Google Docs.

Productivity 2.0

2010-02-24T12:02:00.000+08:00

"Welcome to the New Deja Vu"

2009-11-06T11:24:00.002+08:00

said Max's status in Google Wave

beta

I've just slipped in,

to experiment with

the future of communication

the cessation of duplication

unless we're all mistaken.

Only time will tell

Though time tells less when it's not adjacent to other time

Time in isolation

Only tells us what we're told

Without the old beside the new

The new may design a falser 'true.'

Thus I walk the shore of the Google Wave

waiting for the next tide to arrive.

Sensing the sizzling excitement of innovation

That reeks of the smoky remains of

last year's new sensation.

The stench of which is still in our clothes

Like a smokey night out at a hotpot restaurant.

Nothing New Under the Sun

2009-05-29T11:18:00.001+08:00

"Nothing New Under the Sun"
Jonathan Chambers

Inspired by 8th Graders

The longer I live
The more that I'm bitten
The less I shall write
For all has been written

New music I hear
That I've heard before
There's nothing of interest
The world is a bore

These jokes are all stale
This humor is tired
There's nothing to smirk at
I have no desire

And so I'll continue
To numbly forget
My own lack of originality
Created this mindset.

May 27, 2009.

Blips not Blogs

2009-02-15T15:21:00.000+08:00

Parallel Insight

2009-01-18T01:06:00.002+08:00

Thanks for dropping by, but most of my blogging is not actually happening here these days. VirtualJonathan is (more or less) a directory of the places where you can find me, so dig into the links in the right-hand column, and chances are you'll find some some sort of digital imprint that I've left in the past day or two. Thanks for trying ;-)

Where Am I Now?

2008-11-14T21:04:00.002+08:00

J-Scape reconfigured

2008-09-12T23:36:00.002+08:00

Most of my current blogging is located at my newest blog: The Articulator.

In case you're wondering, I'm back in Shanghai and loving it!

Autoblogging

2008-08-01T15:56:00.007+08:00

Due to the fact that I'm returning to mainland China, I'm temporarily switching to a Twitter/Plurk feed for microblogging. You can contact me @ my Twitter page.

Plurk.com

Moving sale in Macao

2008-08-01T00:23:00.005+08:00

We're moving and have some items for sale in Macao. You can preview what's going here. Please contact Leigh-Anne at russell.la@gmail.com if you're interested in any of these items.

I Take the Mickey

2008-07-30T09:09:00.002+08:00

Venetian Blinding Light

2008-07-02T21:15:00.005+08:00

This afternoon I rediscovered the fact that the afternoon light is neatly sliced by the venetian blinds in my study. I've played with this 'natural' lighting effect before, but today I also discovered additional lightplay by introducing the felt curves of a bowler hat.

The rest of the shots are in a collage: Fear Lines.

Curry Toothpaste?

2008-06-21T21:29:00.003+08:00

Among the scores of designer toothpaste flavours that Leigh-Anne and I discovered this afternoon at our local New Yaohan supermarket in Macau we found... curry flavoured toothpaste?

Plethora in the Wild

2008-06-11T11:04:00.004+08:00

Here's the first photographic evidence I've received of my book of -erm- eclectic poetry in someone's hands. That's right, it's Frank Hossack, star of "Where's Frank?" in Nanjing, China.
Soft cover:
Hard cover:

Visual Bookshelf

2008-06-11T10:36:00.001+08:00

This week I ported over all of my book/reading data from 'Book Tag' on Facebook to 'Visual Bookshelf'. It seems like it's a better application with a more vibrant community.

Have Your Cake and Eat It...

2008-05-15T00:52:00.003+08:00

The Future

2008-05-13T14:45:00.002+08:00

Rephasing

2008-04-28T02:12:00.003+08:00

E.M.L.I.C. is Born

2008-04-17T17:04:00.005+08:00

Today I launched a 'baby' version of a new blog/resource site: E.M.L.I.C. (Expanding Media Literacy in Classrooms). The concept is to display and organize some of the very best media/resources to accompany regular classroom teaching - essentially, it's a recommendation engine, based upon the knowledge of a small, select group of educators. Although this may not seem to be a particularly original concept at first glance, there are at least two original concepts that I'm working with:

Creation of an online database of my own resources with increased personal metadata and connections.
Creation of an online database for other educators so that hopefully someone will consider using a tool/s outside of some of the traditional media.

I've chosen to work with WordPress for this blog, as their templates and widgets offer more flexibility than Blogger, and hopefully I might be able to get back on track with sharing information with friends and colleagues behind 'The Great Firewall' of China.

Beware of the Loop

2008-04-02T20:52:00.003+08:00

A certain poetry anthology that I originally made a short run of in 1995 is back on the virtual shelves thanks to on-demand printing. The second edition of Plethora is 178 pages, and it's available now as both in both paperback and hardcover versions.

The first edition (1995) was available as a limited edition 'art book' release, but after 13 years I decided it was time to re-edit and reformat the book into a second edition (2008). If anyone's crazy enough to order a copy, I'd love to hear what you have to say about it now.

Soft cover: US$14.34

Hard cover: US$24.81

Too many iPods

2008-02-27T23:37:00.005+08:00

...and I know I must've been one of the only suckers to ever buy the gold iPod mini. I bought it in New York shortly after they were released, and all the Apple Store in Soho had left were gold and green... a pretty salesgirl twisted my arm.

iPod mini (1st generation) 4GB (2004)
iPod photo (only generation) 60GB (2005)
iPod nano (1st generation) 4GB (2005)
iPod (5th generation) 60GB (2006)
iPod touch (1st generation) 16GB (2007)

VJ'08

2008-01-02T17:26:00.000+08:00

Always On

2008-01-02T07:25:00.000+08:00

Always On Culture is a new blog that came to me just before dawn this morning. I was thinking about jotting down some ideas to add to my techsoc channel, "Tangent," but then it dawned on me that a relevant idea that has a lot of scope for exploration probably deserves its own place in cyberspace.

Let's see how this one develops: Always On Culture

I developed the logo/banner by searching for a base silhouette (under a CC license) on Flickr, which I then cropped, darkened, duplicated, recolored, and rearranged. It might also be about time for me to get rid of the scary banner that I have on this blog, too! ;-)

Ethiopia [Preview]

2007-12-29T21:58:00.000+08:00

A short video I edited together in an afternoon from Barry's tapes from Ethiopia. I'm looking forward to seeing all of the additional footage that he shot.

1 Wedding & 4 Funerals, and the negative space in-between

2007-12-21T11:45:00.000+08:00

What a disruptive year! It's almost like a series of events that should've occurred over a much longer period was concentrated into a single, untidy year.

I'm not a particularly linear person, but here's an attempt to sum up what happened:

I was in Macau for the new year, then I returned to Shanghai. I ran a course for teachers on teaching ESL in the mainstream. During the same period, Leigh-Anne and I were both darting between Shanghai and Macau in an attempt to keep it real. Then I went to Xi'an and Nanjing, and returned to find that our cat was fatally ill. Several weeks later one of our turtles nosedived off a 7 story balcony and died the next day. Then my grandma died. I finished up with work in Shanghai. Leigh-Anne and I were then married in Hong Kong, followed by a honeymoon in Thailand. Then I moved to Macau. There was a quick trip to Taiwan wedged in there somewhere. Most recently my grandfather passed away.

Of course, you can't really sum up a year like that, because it's life is just as much about nuance, influence and affect as it is about cold, hard facts and discrete events. I think one of the most powerful concepts I'm going to take with my into 2008 is an idea I read in Silence in Second Language Learning: A Psychoanalytic Reading by Colette A. Granger. I may be oversimplifying the concept, but one of the concepts is that silence is a form of communication, and that there are messages in the silence. When I was about 15 years old one of my more mature friends told me, "Friends can share the silence."

There's a silent space between the acquisition of a first language and a second. There's space between the events that seemed to define our year on the surface. There are emotions between grief and joy. There are steps between ignorance and mastery. And most of life is spent joining dots, rather than standing on discrete points. Within this architecture of intervals we can find all of the seemingly inconsequential actions and gestures that gradually build grand structures of friendships, careers, families, inventions, books, theories, and all of those things that we work so hard to build and to culminate in.

And so as I make my plans for the next year, I'm not going to predestine the points or the results, but I'm going to try to focus more intently on the spaces in between.

Google hears my voice?

2007-12-20T12:29:00.000+08:00

On October 29 I posted a short "GMail Christmas wishlist" to this blog:

My Gmail Christmas Wishlist

I asked for 3 things:
(1) A restructured labeling system
(2) Advanced file management
(3) Native batch file upload utility

Lo and behold, my first wish has been granted by GoogleSanta! Actually, the labeling system is even better than what I asked for, so the elves must've really been thinking it all through - impressive.

Now I don't see my 2nd and 3rd requests yet, but maybe those will be under the tree for me...or maybe I'll just get a bag of coal?

Thanks, friends.

2007-12-14T21:43:00.001+08:00

Mini Me

2007-11-29T00:03:00.000+08:00

So today I spent a bit more time trying to get to grips with typing on the touchscreen of this iPod touch, and fortunately I'm gradually getting there - albeit single-handedly. Today I also managed to put the next batch of music programming for Bellini behind me so I can focus on more important things, like our upcoming weekend in Taiwan. It's finally starting to feel like winter here.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T11:30:00.001+08:00

CM Backnet V2

2007-11-06T01:33:00.000+08:00

Tonight I mapped my online backup system to check on progress. I've got 50 gigs up there now, and I'm currently only using about 30% of the space I have available.

Lord of the RIng

2007-11-01T23:32:00.001+08:00

After a quiet dinner tonight at a small Mexican restaurant in Taipa (strike that - there was a kinda loud guy from Cirque de Soleil at the table next to us, but he was just being enthusiastic)... Leigh-Anne and I went back to the Venetian, as she needed to review a show that's being performed tonight for the first time.

Upon entry into the Venetian I went to use one of the bathrooms, and somehow came out with some liquid soap still on my left hand, ie. where I wear my wedding ring. Now of course the only logical place for this story to go is that as I was riding up an escalator I decided to gesticulate broadly with my hand, and the ring flew off towards the hotel lobby. I ran back down the escalator that was trying to take me upward, and absolutely panicked, as I thought that my wedding ring had been swallowed up by the machinery.

As I was frantically scanning the floor / the area in front of me / the side / and back again, I noticed that there was a woman standing right beside me, and that she was calmly and silently holding up my ring.

Hair Design 2.0

2007-11-01T13:52:00.000+08:00

A new hair design I just created for Leigh-Anne on my Wacom tablet. Something tells me she's not going to go for it?

Retooling thinking; rethinking working

2007-11-01T04:51:00.000+08:00

It's one thing for a culture to criticize another's government for obscuring access to online resources, but cursory glances inside many 'sophisticated, modern' institutions can prove to be equally frustrating. Many schools deny students basic access to potentially volatile technologies like -- email. Corporate technology policies restrict access to anything that cannot be tightly monitored by Big Brother, and these kinds of policies are usually supported by potential negatives of the technologies in question.

And so we shall be guided by fear once again. Fear of that which has the potential to wreak havoc, despite the fact that our new technologies have the potential to empower us. Once again we are manacled. As we scan the course of history we can see this happening time and time again. The technology to print on paper was once held by the cultural elite, as the uneducated were left without the means to create a record and reflect upon it. Education and access to tools was restricted.

Now you can give me access to corporate or institutional email, and you can allow me to use an Office package and maybe even some other pieces of software like an outline. But what if I've developed my own online neural network, which spans sites and blogs and wikis and other interconnected services? And what if these services are evolutionary and revolutionary, and not able to be directly monitored by a 'Big Brother?'

The universe and the Internet have some common features: they're both progressively expanding, and they're both entropic. If we concentrate our information or our development of it in a small target zone, then so many pieces of information and working styles will be gradually moving away from us - to the point where it will become difficult --if not impossible-- to gain control of even one of those systems, letalone a number of them once they've veered out on their own unique velocities.

One of my greatest current grievances is that we are supposedly teaching the next generation how to 'use' new technologies, even though we're also telling them that they're not allowed to employ important components when they're at work or at school. However, the problem is these new systems can be so much more adaptable and flexible if they're permitted to breathe and evolve organically.

I believe that the architecture of information --both thinking and articulation-- needs to get "messier" and more experimental, and that we should actually be talking more about these processes and evolutionary structures more. This is not to say that our grammar or our ability to write should become chaotic, but there may be more unpredictable means to that end as we go forward. If tools are available then why are we hiding them from students or workers... to create some sort of reductionist art?

It's time for leaders to act less from their corporate amygdala, and to start thinking about the future more with their frontal cortex. The positive effect of empowering individuals and groups with a much wider array of tools needs to be embraced, instead of just looking at the potential damage that might transpire as a result of using what's right in front of us.

GMail Christmas Wishlist

2007-10-29T23:23:00.000+08:00

Dear GoogleSanta,

So I'm a bit early to start making a Christmas wishlist, but "developers, developers, developers, developers" need time to working their coding magic, so I thought I'd try to give GoogleSanta some heads-up on my GMail wishlist. I love my, erm, several GMail accounts, and I still can't be sold on anything else, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still needy and demanding. So, here are my 3 wishes for a better beta:

1. LABELS

I frequently use labels to tag my emails and to create folders/categories, which is why I'd like creation of new labels to be a little easier.

In the 'More actions..." drop-down menu the "New label" option is (a) placed at the bottom of the list; (b) is in exactly the same font/weight/color as any other labels I've already created. I'd like to see the "New label" option on the top so I don't have to scroll through my 'old' labels when I want to create a new one.

2. ADVANCED ATTACHMENT/FILE MANAGEMENT

OK, here's where I get really demanding. Google wants to organize the world's information, and I'm certainly using their services in an attempt to organize mine, but what if I receive (or send to myself) a series of files that aren't in the same conversation, and I want to download them all? I'd love to be able to browse FILES, not just emails. Furthermore, I'd like to be able to group those files and effect rapid transfers to my desktop.

3. NATIVE/BUILT-IN BATCH FILE UPLOAD UTILITY

I'd like Google to build their own file upload system into GMail, so that I don't have to use 3rd party add-ons like GSpace, or Automator scripts in Mail to send myself a batch of files that I can't squeeze into 20 megs.

Alright then. That's about it. Thanks, GoogleSanta. By this Christmas would be great, or at least by Chinese New Year?

Cheers,
Jonathan.

Get some rest. It's going to be a long journey.

2007-10-28T03:03:00.000+08:00

Tonight Leigh-Anne and I went to see the Black Eyed Peas at the Venetian Arena here in Macau, and I wondered whether I should try to take any pictures. There was certainly some fun stage work that might have been captured as an image, but I didn't take any pictures. In fact, Leigh-Anne and repeated our performance at the Rolling Stones in a way... we didn't even stay until the end of the show.

However, here's the image that struck me today - a picture of Kerry & Dave's newborn son, Duke.

As much as I enjoyed watching a world famous band dominate a stage in front of thousands, there's no picture I could've taken that I would've liked as much as this picture of a child on the first day of his life. Resting at the start of a very long journey.

There is no excuse for not being original

2007-10-26T08:54:00.000+08:00

A number of years ago I briefly worked in a design department for a certain lifestyle company in Shanghai. Their practices were refreshingly innovative and original: a company director who used to take pictures of designer furniture out of Wallpaper magazine to have the pieces copied at by a local manufacturer; and an assistant who used to go to the library when given a design task so that he could photocopy designs directly from books. When I questioned why we were being so blatantly unoriginal I was informed that I was the one at fault for being so arrogant.

Therefore, I'm going to be unoriginal by copying this image that was posted in Engadget today. The photos represent an old advertising campaign for the iPod nano alongside new press shots for Sony's newly-released Cybershot cameras. I don't know if you could conclude that someone in Sony's design department was copying - a couple of angles have changed, and they are cameras, not mp3 players, afterall?

So is the world fresh out of ideas, or does lack of originality reflect social and cultural systems? Today The New York Times ran a piece on the state of Chinese popular music, and the way that it reflects suppressed expression. So are people in these systems inherently unoriginal, or are they just reproducing the genetics of homogeneity that have been inflicted on them by the thought police?

The ironic element of all of this is that people who are surrounded by innovation and creativity tend to copy those creative energies in order to further innovate. However, when we're surrounded by a culture that is intent on maintaining the status quo we wind up just copying the flock. An example of this might be the the kinds of reasonably pointless memetic transmission that occur on Facebook funwalls, whereby endless 'games' of pass-the-parcel with videos or pointless applications are played out until they arrive back where they started.

Is a copy of a copy of a copy an original? In some cases sufficient mutation can occur in the duplication process to facilitate an evolutionary shift towards originality. However, usually a product needs to be recognizably distinct in order for us to label it "an original."

This could be one of those times when I could say something to the effect of, "Never before in human history has it been so difficult to be original, when so many have created prior to us, and now there are so many people out there who are competing with us for original thoughts and products." However, I won't, because it's an entirely unoriginal concept and, quite frankly, I'm weary of the whole, "never before in human history" rubbish, because it's always been that way. Let's face it, 200 years ago I could have been sailing on a ship between England and the new colony of Australia, and I could have been writing, "Never before in human history have we all been so interconnected."

Therefore, once we get past the awe and wonder of our new marvelousness, and once we get past the social, cultural and economic excuses for not being original we might be able to get on with it. In my case, in order to be original I need to stop wasting time focusing on examples that are not.

Go forth and create, my friends.

Office:mac 2008 preview

2007-10-25T11:36:00.000+08:00

100K YouTube Statistics

2007-10-11T14:49:00.000+08:00

WARNING: This is probably not interesting to anyone but myself. I keep my records and breakdowns on my blogs.

Today the YouTubeOdomoter clicked over the 100,000 views mark. So I don't make any money off amateur videos on YouTube, but I've been experimenting with "Long Tail" consumption all the same - I haven't exactly had any "hits". It took me about a year to log 50,000 views, but then just another 5 months to double that number. 5 months ago I had 204 videos, and I've only added 30 during that period to reach a total of 234.

The top 10 (most viewed) videos account for 42% of total views (42,065 hits), ie. 4% of the content is responsible for 40% of the views. All of the top 10 videos have been online for at least 9 months.

Labelling and tagging played an important part in attracting viewers. Place names such as "Laos," "Vientiane," "Bangkok," "Bruges" are commonly searched and produce hits. Other popular terms and word combinations also work well, such as "rock band," Chinese cooking," "stem cell," and, predictably, "Harry Potter."

Rock Around the Clock

2007-10-11T00:56:00.000+08:00

Ah, it took me weeks, but I've finally finished the foundation for 24 hours of flexible playlist music to be played in the Bellini Lounge at the Venetian in Macao. Hopefully by this weekend the Phoenix Casino quarter will be grooving to its own distinct shade. The final step was to build all of the 4am-11am music - in a flexible/non-linear fashion, and now the setlists should flesh out across the entire 'day.'

Just over 21 hours amounts to 264 songs that I selected from my library. That's 1% of my current music library, but it's amazing how long it takes to dig for gold. I also mastered 2.4 hours of music for some dance mixes, but I'm not going to count those, as I didn't do the work of choosing the music.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, the last thing on earth I want to be is a DJ - yuck! However, I'm happy with building the start of a style guide, and hopefully what I've started will soon be overun with all sorts of great tracks that I've never heard.

OK, moving on - I have performance videos to archive for the Venetian. And, no, you won't be seeing them on YouTube.

China or Bust '99

2007-10-03T22:21:00.000+08:00

Old Hi8 footage from Shanghai in '99 that I rescued with EyeTV. All editing and 'FX' done on the camera.

Macau Toxic Weather Day

2007-10-03T12:23:00.000+08:00

Curiously dismal weather brought on by a low pressure system that's made Macau extremely windy over the past few days.

Bellini-ed

2007-10-02T23:37:00.000+08:00

The original spread of 7.5 hours of programmed music for Bellini has now expanded to 12.2 hours of tracklists, as I've now added continuous blocks of music for the 11-1pm/2am-4am slots. Working on music selection was fun, but exhausting... I hope I can provide some replacement slots for each of the sections/programs so that the venue music doesn't get too repetitive.

Walking on Water

2007-09-20T20:26:00.000+08:00

OK, maybe more walking across water, rather than walking on water. Yesterday I set out from our apartment on the Macao peninsula, walked across a bridge to Taipa (island), then over to the Venetian on the Cotai strip (reclaimed land between islands)... this much I did last week, but this time I felt compelled to keep walking to Coloane (island)... and then back home again. I have this Nike+ data from my iPod/shoes to prove it?

Wow - I'm so fit! Not... I can barely move my leg-stumps today. I enjoyed myself, though?

Swizzle Mix

2007-09-15T16:45:00.001+08:00

Hooray, I finished programming various sets of music for the Bellini Lounge in the Venetian casino, and I'm extremely happy that I don't have to keep wading through music for a while. 7 CDs later, the selections are now being installed into the sound system's Adobe Audition software, and these initial blocks of 7.5 hours of music will begin their rotation tonight. The last time I programmed a comparable amount of music was 5 hours' worth for Gourmet Shanghai, but this time I 'dug deep' and really tried to explore unknown regions of my music library.

I remember being in the Grand Hyatt several years ago scoffing at the guys who programmed music for the hotel. Little did I know - it's really not such an easy job. OK, so it's not on the same level as being a musician/creator, but it does fall into the same category as 'editor,' which is pretty much my 'type.'

Actually, I think what I enjoyed most about the whole process is that (as usual) I wound up editing in my sleep, but this morning I woke up and told Leigh-Anne, and she slotted in those final 2 tracks that were bothering me. These things shouldn't be done in isolation!

ajaxWindows - Thin Clients still Thin on Design Logic?

2007-09-11T14:14:00.000+08:00

OK, so I've been attempting to take 'ajaxWindows' for a spin, and although I'm impressed with the fact that the developers have partnered with Gmail to handle 'virtual' storage (ala Gdrive &c.), I'm still not gripped by the concept of thin clients, especially when they appear to be as sluggish as this beta. I understand the concept of centralizing and synching your docs and apps, but is it really worth a massive decrease in performance and aesthetics?

This all seems to be very cumbersome, slow, and, well, ugly! As we advance toward the future am I supposed to believe that a virtual version of Windows 98 is the revolution I've been waiting for?

In the meantime we have a swag of other 'revolutionary' products like Google Docs, Zoho & co. Has anyone out there actually ever had a good experience with these apps?

...and on that note, my "ajaxWindows" crashed and alerted me to the fact that I no longer exist.

Google Books' old school tools

2007-09-11T13:15:00.000+08:00

I've been experimenting with Google Books' new "My Libary" feature, which allows you to catalog your own books, however, I'm not really seeing the logic behind their incarnation of this kind of tool yet. Although I'm not willing to fork out the money for it, Delicious Library would've allowed me to use a webcam to scan barcodes, but Google Books requires manual typing of either ISBNs or book titles. Another thing that seems to be lacking is the ability to manage your library, eg. indicating that a book is lent out to a friend and such. Unlike some of the flimsier tools, like the Facebook app, "Booktag," Google Books actually does create ad hoc covers for books that lack cover art, but it still seems to be lacking the social networking/sharing features that are probably the most enticing features of sites such as Library Thing. However, Library Thing attempts to lure users in by allowing them to enter up to 200 books for free, before it starts to charge you.

Frankly, I flatly refuse to pay anybody to make an effort to post my booklists online. Somebody should be able to use collective book data to determine interests, demographics, and other specific data that can be mined and utilized to turn a buck.

Burn the Floor - Floorplay

2007-09-06T22:51:00.000+08:00

Australian production we saw tonight at the Sands Theatre in Macau.

Up to the Imagination

2007-09-02T00:40:00.000+08:00

Kuler Color Creation

2007-09-02T00:27:00.000+08:00

This evening I played around with Adobe's Kuler color creation/sharing site. Great stuff - I love the fact that I can create my own color themes, save them, and also download them as swatches. Super.

Cusp

2007-09-01T19:23:00.000+08:00

The product of playing around in 'Graffiti' on Facebook, a screen capture, and then a quick piece of audio construction in Garageband.

Today's mini photo essay about Macau

2007-08-29T18:33:00.000+08:00

A certain mainland Chinese city was on my mind when I was labelling these pictures with some short captions. It's all about contrast, you see?

PATH NO PEOPLE (track up on hill behind our apartment)

PLANTS NO PLASTIC (vegetation behind our apartment building)

DUSK NO DUST (bridge to Taipa)

Quick digital scribble

2007-08-27T12:50:00.000+08:00

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/virtual-jonathan

2007-08-26T16:12:00.000+08:00

Ghost Writer

2007-08-25T20:18:00.000+08:00

I was about to comment upon how I didn't see much religion or superstition in mainland China, but the fact is that I'm just being immersed in a different breed of it now, so it was easy to forget all of the markers and indicators in China: upside-down 'luck' signs on doorways; crackers when people moved into an apartment; weeks of fireworks around Chinese new year...the scale of which I'll probably never see again. I remember visiting Taiwan and being struck by the number of personal altars that people seemed to have in nearly ever store I visited in Kaoshiung.

By contrast, in Macau we have a lady next door to us who likes to burn a lot of fake money in the stairwell/elevator shaft. The smoke quite often drifts under our door and really fumes us out. We wondered if we'd be able to give her a hint or two, but it turns out that it's currently "Ghost Month" around these parts, and if anything the superstitious burning rituals have only escalated over the past week: it seems like every street I walk down has at least a few clusters of offerings for 'ghosts' - carefully-prepared meals to tide them over in the afterlife, incense, and of course a hefty collection of fake money to burn.

Don't even get me started on Feng Shui... our landlord left us with an evil-deflecting octagon on the balcony. By the power of Greyskull!

ProTools happiness!

2007-08-24T00:04:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I've taken some full quality audio tracks and mixed them in ProTools - ah, sweet sound. Everything sounds a little bit sweeter through Digidesign hardware.

vSide is set to upset second lives...

2007-08-20T00:54:00.000+08:00

Tonight I set out for a short adventure in "vSide," which is basically like Second Life, but fun. Granted, I've busted my weird dance moves in Second Life before, but although I was still a noob in vSide, some fellow avatars threw 60 "Respekt" points my way... probably not much, but enough to make me feel welcome... usually when I try to do the robot people don't usually offer me praise?

So, what makes vSide so compelling? Instantly I was immersed into the rich musical environment of the platform: everywhere you go there are tracks and remixes designed to keep the teen-20 something set happy, and I guess that the music was interesting enough to keep my 30 something interest piqued, too. Setting up an avatar and getting my basic body, hair, glasses and clothes up and running happened much more quickly than your basic Second Life setup, although it also took a fractional amount of time to find virtual stores to get funkier accessories, which took me instantly to a very "real life" credit card payment site. Nuh-huh!

Regardless, I really had fun with this. Although the virtual world seems (at present) much smaller than all of the spaces to explore in Second Life, vLife currently has 3 main 'districts' programmed in, and the 'gameplay' was responsive and functional, although it did crash on me once. Maybe the fact that the designers have taken a 'smaller world' approach has led to the fact that you can easily find other avatars to interact with, unlike the often sparse, empty world of Second Life. Hey, I even had made a few friends on my first visit.

So far investors have thrown about $11 million in the direction of vSide. I think they've probably spent their money well, although I wouldn't count on this hanging around for a protracted period. Sony is currently ramping up their new PS3 platform, which will cannibalize a certain percentage of the potential audience, but beyond this fact there's a deeper 'truth' that many still don't seem to get: the crowd is fickle and easily bored. Anyway, it's exciting to go and try out something new - hasn't that always been part of the real world? Why should the virtual world be any different?

All the great stuff I bought in Hong Kong last week!

2007-08-19T22:48:00.000+08:00

Every time I've been to Hong Kong I've somehow been sucked into those cavernous malls, and I've (eventually) emerged back onto the street with bags full of consumer products: books, CDs, software, gadgets... you name it.

This past week I took a completely different approach. I figured, "If you can't beat 'em, don't join 'em!" My strategy was to find alternatives to my usual consumer pleasures, and to not spend a single Hong Kong dollar. Admittedly, I bought food and toiletries, and I paid for a couple of cabs and a ferry ticket, but that was it.

Alternative to buying books: I looked over my friend's bookshelf and dug into her books. 1000+ free pages later I feel satisfied with my purchase, and my brain is still attempting to synthesize new information.

Alternative to buying software: I downloaded open source software (eg. I needed an image editor, so I resorted to Gimp instead of Photoshop)... I also decided that most of the new features in Apple's iLife '08 are detritus, so I didn't even look for an alternative.

Alternative to buying CDs: I downloaded a bunch of podcasts for free.

Wow... what a cheapskate! Now we're living frugally! As soon as I got back to Macau I went to a furniture shop and bought a new desk... something that I need, but can't be constructed out of digital files or borrowed materials... unless you expect me to work on a piece of particle board strapped across a few piles of bricks?

Does this have a moral? Nah... just bloggin' it all out.

Chinese Service Paradigm Shift

2007-08-17T23:46:00.000+08:00

After living in Shanghai for 8 years and constantly hearing other foreigners saying, "You can't find a decent travel agent here" I found a group of young professionals, "Real Travel," who I travelled with to Sichuan, Xi'an, Nanjing... and who eventually wound up instantly booking me international tickets from Shanghai over the phone. "Real Travel" is a group of young go-getters who've completely changed my concept of how travel arrangements can be effected: I can phone them and make instant bookings over the phone. Tickets would arrive at my apartment free of charge!

The second group of "young go-getters" are a couple in Shanghai who I could call for near-instant delivery of Apple computers and a wide variety of printers, scanners, hard drives... and they'd even come over to my house and collect a piece of hardware and go and get it serviced for me if necessary. Qing Chi and Wing were my "tech suppliers" in Shanghai for years, and eventually their services spread to my friends - they supplied computers, iPods, and even supported HD video importing sessions when we were working on movie sessions.

Now I'm over in Aberdeen in Hong Kong wondering what's hit me - I can go up to the counter of a MacDonalds and order entirely in English, or I can negotiate a short stay in an apartment complex... all in English! Tonight I went to a 7-Eleven and found myself trading Mandarin and Cantonese with the lady behind the counter... this is something that would still be really difficult to do on the mainland... but so far in Hong Kong I've only found people who are smiling, tolerant, and willing to learn - it's so refreshing! The woman behind the counter was actually asking me to how to say things in Mandarin, and then she'd teach me how to say it in Cantonese on the spot... the staff had a little laugh at my attempts to replicate the Cantonese (in all of its 6/7 tones), but I was actually teaching them how to name items in Mandarin... and they were thanking me for teaching them "Guoyu" (Mainland Chinese/Putonghua)... ie. Chinese were letting me teach them Chinese. It's so encouraging, so friendly, and SO not the attitude that I'm used to in Shanghai.

I'm so impressed by the attitude to service in Hong Kong, and to a lesser extent, Macau. I'm learning how to "switch" between Mandarin and Cantonese, and I'm applying the same rules to Cantonese that I previously did with Japanese - if I just keep looking at the characters and the phonetic transfer, then I'll eventually be able to navigate this territory with the right terminology. It's really encouraging, and now I feel as if "this world" is within reach.

The people down here are so amazing - so multilingual, and so open to negotiating their ideas through at least 2 or 3 different languages. I'm humbled, and very happy to be here.

35 Year-old "Cure" - Pop Colonics

2007-08-16T01:30:00.000+08:00

This photo of Robert Smith and the Cure comes courtesy of Andrew Grant, and our continuing strange connection to all things "Willows Lodge" - the Missionary Kids' home that we lived in during the 80s. Basically, as we get older and experience the 'catharsis' of finally seeing our old heroes in action, there really is a process of psychological purging in action. As a linguist, I'm interested in the origin of "catharsis," which is derived from an old 17th century Greek term, "katharsis," which basically meant, "cleansing." ie. go and see your old heroes warble up on stage, in much the same way that I watched the Rolling Stones stagger around onstage in Shanghai... before I left the show early. You'll be satisfied that you finally saw them, and you'll feel a little bit lighter when they disappoint you.

Exceptions to this rule: Prince? ... even when his set is a little drippy, you'll still leave intact.

A little fun with Camtwist...

2007-08-15T23:40:00.000+08:00

Don't take this too seriously... it's just an experiment with video FX.

Web 2-point-"Oh no!"

2007-08-15T22:56:00.001+08:00

So I've been hiding over here in Aberdeen for the past few days, and thus far I've avoided the lure of Central, as I'd seriously like to avoid the temptation of buying more software that'll eventually just collect digital dust. I already bought another MacBook in Macau on Saturday, due to the premature demise of my overworked black model, so enough cash has been spent in that department. In the meantime, I'll just continue to fill this machine up with open source+freeware, and hopefully that'll tide me over while I wait to resurrect my 'work' laptop... and await the arrival of the rest of my computers on the long boat from China.

The height of my physical interactions occurred about 20 minutes ago in an elevator, when I noticed that a guy standing close to one of the mirrored doors was stroking his lack of facial hair and discussing it with his female friend. My Cantonese is still fairly scarce, but judging by what Malcolm Gladwell would probably call "Micro-glances," I suspect that he was comparing his lack of facial hair to my very unintentional goatee.

So far as digital interactions go, strangely enough I've been reunited with a small clusters of friends from Australia and beyond thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Well, actually, thanks to both the platforms and my friends' willingness to experiment with them. Now despite the fact that all of these platforms are becoming entirely unwieldily, I'm at least "recollecting" old friends and acquaintances, and occasionally finding somebody new to have a genuine conversation with, each time I carve out a new space for myself in the digital universe. However, you have to wonder how unifying this all is if it takes so many different methods to find/connect with them? There are some good multiplatform chat clients out there that do the job, but it still all seems a bit too much like buying into the global "trophy collecting" mentality of lining your friends up in Facebook like gleaming medals on a shelf, rather than treating them like... human beings?

Regardless, armed with Twitter, Facebook, MySpace (ugh!), YouTube, Gmail, Gmail Chat, Google Apps, Googlepages, Hotmail, Live Spaces, MSN, LiveJournal, Blogger, UStream, BaseCamp, Skype, Moodle, and a bunch of other jigsaw pieces, I've managed to loosely stay in touch with 'significant humans' that would otherwise still be out there in the nether-world.

But what do you DO with all of this? Either people come together for brief, meaningless interaction, or they actively choose to do something productive together. Kill me, but I'm project-oriented, and most probably will be until the day I die. Several years ago I worked on a fated film project with a group from Australia, although our work didn't get too far, as we only had a shared FTP server to review short, unfinished pieces of our project. However, since then I've been able to use YouSendIt.com to work on highly-compressed review mixes of both audio and video that we've actually used to good effect. Leigh-Anne and I tried to hold our long-distance relationship together with video chats using iChat, but finally Skype released their Mac video client, which served us much better in Asia. My ultimate favorite out of all of these tools has been BaseCamp, which I used to rally my ESL department when I saw that the local intranet client wasn't going to meet our needs. I also used Moodle to bridge the gap between two campuses of teachers who were studying "ESL in the Mainstream," but it only worked with a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.

I could provide many more anecdotes, but the synthesis here is that there are too many clients and not enough practical solutions to facilitate effective group collaboration or education. So many chefs, so many different 'broths,' but I'm seriously in need of a kitchen here instead of a modular farm. This morning I found myself reading a dev blog by my old friend in Queensland, Wayne McFetridge. He was weighing up the argument of spreading himself thin by going down yet another road toward meeting customer demand/solution. However, he'd decided to stick with his current platforms/solutions and to continue to develop within those environments. Aside from the fact that many economists would argue that this is where your leverage "is at," I have to also hark back to some ideas that I've heard from NASA scientists: when you're sending a probe into the deepest regions of the universe you want to work through the problem with tried and tested technologies... there's no room for failure in a mission where you can't physically go and rectify the problem without great risk or delay.

Specialize or innovate? How about - specialize and then innovate from within your specialtity?

On that note, Leigh-Anne has just SMSed me from the Sands in Macau, where she's been managing the stage for the past year. She's with a new group of show producers from Australia, and when I get back this weekend we'll work on show alterations for the Venetian together - in person. Their security is so tight that there's no way we'll be doing any of this online!

Marooned on an Island?

2007-08-13T19:42:00.000+08:00

So I've been temporarily displaced to a 'remote island.' And for those of you who are still under the impression that "Macau" is an island, it's not: central Macau is a peninsula that's attached to Zhuhai, which is on the southern Chinese coastline. The 'illusion' of Macau being an archipelago is largely due to the fact that Macau's two other central components are islands: Taipa and Coloane. However, that's all up for debate, considering that Sheldon Adelson & co. have, in effect joined those two islands together with the Cotai strip, which is where you'll be able to find the Venetian resort et al. in just a few weeks. Far be it from me to criticize this development, considering that the Venetian is essentially why Leigh-Anne and I moved down here to begin with.

Regardless, the attached picture is not of Macau: it's a picture I took this afternoon from the 37th floor apartment where I'm currently ensconced in Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island. I'm here for the week 'serving my time' outside of Macau while I wait for my papers to be processed in Macau. Despite the fact that a number of opportunities have arisen in both Hong Kong and Zhuhai, Macau is where I have my 'mental eye' firmly planted now, and that's where I intend to focus my work. I just hope they can believe in my potential as much as I believe in theirs.

8 Years Later...

2007-08-07T23:20:00.000+08:00

In the sweltering summer of 1999 I arrived in China. I didn't really have a very good idea of what I was getting myself into, and I certainly didn't realize that I was about to spend the next 8 years of my life in Shanghai, as opposed to the 10 month contract that I travelled there on. This morning I flew out of Shanghai for the "last time."

Hello, Macau. Hello, new life. Oh, and hello, again, my wife! ...I think we've done pretty well for a couple who've just spent almost a year apart.

It's good to see the water outside my window again...

Tomorrow's the big day...

2007-07-05T09:06:00.000+08:00

I arrived back in Macau on Tuesday, which is why I'm finally able to view/edit this blog again - Blogger is still "Blocker" on the mainland, so I haven't blogged for months. Yesterday I took a quick trip back over the Chinese border to Zhuhai, but rapidly scuttled back again. Today I'm going to wait for the morning business traffic to subside before heading over to Hong Kong. I need to seek out some clothes, plus there are certain essential wedding rings that need to be collected from a jeweler.

And so, tomorrow Leigh-Anne and I are getting married in Hong Kong...

Destination Macau

2007-05-01T23:01:00.000+08:00

Macau Mayday 2007 - Bye again!

2007-05-01T16:06:00.001+08:00

Back in Macau

2007-04-28T15:46:00.000+08:00

I'm back in Macau for the Mayday long weekend. Ahhh... there's a fantastic ocean breeze blowing through the apartment, and I'm just glad to be here.

Gettin' Wiggy in Zhudi Town with Francesca

2007-03-25T13:29:00.000+08:00

Ahhh... Macau!

2007-03-25T13:19:00.000+08:00

I'm sitting on the balcony of 'our' (ie. Leigh-Anne's) apartment in Macau, looking over the water and enjoying the warm ocean breeze. It's sunny and relaxing, and I'm so glad to be taking a break from Shanghai! Leigh-Anne is still in Melbourne, but she's due to arrive back in Macau on Tuesday. In the meantime, I'm going to be working on my resume and a presentation that I'll give at a school on Hong Kong island (Central) later this week.

Despite the fact that the traffic here is buzzing, it instantly feels more relaxing, and it's great to be able to take my shoes off and just hang out. It's also great to be able to actually SEE my blogspot blogs again - they've been blocked in mainland China for over a week, but everything is working just fine here. It's also really good to just be able to open my laptop and instantly hop onto the web, seeing we've set up identical Airport (wireless) networks for our computers in both Shanghai and Macau.

Here's to a good week. I can hardly wait to see Leigh-Anne.

Virtual Jonathan podcast

2007-02-23T16:54:00.001+08:00

Click here to get your own player.

VJ Frappr map

2007-02-21T03:32:00.001+08:00

Visual DNA

2007-02-21T03:08:00.000+08:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

...and here's Leigh-Anne's "Visual DNA"...

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

LA on Lamma Island, HK today

2007-02-17T22:15:00.000+08:00

Today Leigh-Anne and Li took a 4 hour hike on Lamma Island, Hong Kong. Here are some tranquil scenes:

I love you

2007-02-14T08:36:00.000+08:00

Happy Valentine's day, Leigh-Anne. Here's an enhanced version of one of the pictures we made by shoving our heads in the scanner the last time you were in town. I'm also including the scan of Ming's paws, seeing she's part of the family.

Mum & Dad's China Odyssey (Part 1)

2007-01-21T23:54:00.000+08:00

Here's Part 1 of a photoshow of Mum & Dad's journey to China, which began in Hong Kong and Macau.

A few more pics from HK

2007-01-21T22:22:00.000+08:00

Shanghai Street Workers at Night

2007-01-07T23:31:00.000+08:00

Taken with Leigh-Anne on the night of her 34th birthday.

Mum & Dad in Hong Kong

2007-01-04T02:17:00.000+08:00

On Wednesday I surprised Mum & Dad by turning up in Hong Kong at their hotel unannounced. I was pleasantly surprised by their adventures in HK, especially Mum's way of making friends on the MTR (subway) and dishing out advice after having been in the city/country for less than 24 hours.

Here are some photos + a quick audio recording that I made today with my new Belkin TuneTalk mic:

Download audio sample (mp3): Right click and 'save as' to save Mum & Dad to your computer?!

The Way Back Machine!

2007-01-01T17:45:00.000+08:00

Way back in 2001 Frank Hossack, Gucki Zuerner, and I were busy setting up a web arm of Cha Cha Radio, which allowed radio listeners in China (and around the world) to connect with Cha Cha. We also created some of the first on-demand listening stations for radio in China, by streaming shows via RealPlayer. In 2004 the website was finally closed, and I'd always assumed that all of this work had just vanished in digital smoke, but today I searched for the domain on archive.org and discovered that there are still pieces of our work that have been stored forever as a part of the history of the Internet.

Pieces of Cha Cha still remain here: Cha Cha Archives

Another project that I was involved with was setting up and designing the original website for Simply Life. My code and little pieces of my graphic work have survived here: Simply Life Archives

Where's Frank? (Part the 1st)

2007-01-01T13:37:00.000+08:00

This could well be the beginning of a "Where's Waldo"-style series of attempts to spot Frank's latest exploits in China.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO READ PART 1

New Years at the Sands, Macau

2007-01-01T03:29:00.000+08:00

We saw New Years 2007 in at the Sands, Macau. Photography is actually banned there (and, yes, I got in trouble for taking photos), but I'm posting these harmless photos of the stage at Xanadu... I figure that these pics capture fun and the good spirit that was there to welcome in the new year.

New Years' random cameraphone 'poetry'

2006-12-31T22:38:00.000+08:00

What I still want for Christmas!

2006-12-29T23:38:00.000+08:00

Directions from the Guia for Mum & Dad

2006-12-29T16:43:00.000+08:00

This post is specifically for my parents so they can find their way from the Guia Hotel in Macau to our place in the shortest possible time.

Click here for directions:

Walking directions to our place (Macau)

Value as quality and quantity in the 21st Century

2006-12-28T13:31:00.000+08:00

In my most recent entry at UTechTips.com I queried the assignment of numeric/monetary values to websites and their respective content. Sir Edward deBono has been questioning the concept of "value creation" since the late 70s, and he rolled a number of these concepts into The Six Value Medals (2005). This is definitely a book worth reading if you're interested in taking the concept of 'value' beyond simple, quantifiable terms.

NEW Picasa Photoblog

2006-12-28T01:45:00.001+08:00

I've added a new link [on the right] to my Picasa photoblog. Below is an example of one of the albums I uploaded: pictures from Japan I took on my trip there late November/early December:

Japan 2006

Macau - Lofty Views

2006-12-27T18:07:00.000+08:00

Last night Leigh-Anne and I went shopping in Senado Square for a smartphone that she could use to organize her troops... after some light research (ie. about 3 days solid scouring the web), we settled on a Palm Treo 750v running WIndows Mobile. Yes, that's right - Windows... a heartbreaking, yet pragmatic move for Mac users. Afterwards, we ambled up past the Guia Hotel, where Mum & Dad are going to be staying in about a week, and I took some photos from the hill of Macau with my Sony phone. Leigh-Anne also tried out the camera on her Treo, which actually took better pictures, even though the resolution on the device is technically lower... oh dear. Tonight we're going for dinner at Samantha's place. Sam is the Aussie interior designer for the Sands/Venetian who originally enticed Leigh-Anne over to these parts in the first place! The first picture is of the very kitsch "World Trade Centre" in Macau that we photographed in the afternoon on the way to Senado Square...

Christmas day on Coloane

2006-12-26T11:44:00.000+08:00

On Christmas day we caught a cab over to Coloane (one of Macau's 3 islands). Our first stop was Lord Stowe's, where we tried out Macau's signature custard tarts, which were supposedly 'invented' at that particular bakery. Woopdy doo. Much more interesting sights included masses of dried fish, squid, and other seafoods hanging in storefronts in plastic packaging, and extremely close views of mainland China across the water. We stopped at a small shrine to who-knows-what, clambered along a rocky beach around a bunch of bays, and then finally found an outdoor Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed our 'Christmas dinner' to the sound of a woman ranting in Portuguese for just about every second of the time that we were there. Aside from her, 'twas a merry Christmas!

More wanders in casino city

2006-12-26T11:32:00.000+08:00

Here are some more images from downtown Macau taken over the past few days: the Sands from the front, and also the driveway/lobby entry for vehicles; LA & I in front of some gaudy decorations near Fisherman's Wharf... plus Leigh-Anne walking around part of Macau city while we were walking toward "Beirut," an overpriced restaurant that we ate at 2 nights ago.

Christmas Eve Macau Style

2006-12-25T12:14:00.000+08:00

So, here's how you want to spend your Christmas Eve in Macau:
(1) Watch faux volcano ignite big puff of gas in fashion that not even mildly resembles lava
(2) Eat great dinner at Perola restaurant, which is of course inside a casino (in the process, pull apart head-dress decoration to imitate blind Star Trek character from The Next Generation)
(3) Go check out new competitor's casino across the road, which turns out to be big, bright and gaudy
(4) Run home and have a cup of tea, like sensible folk do

Macau apartment WITH furniture

2006-12-23T11:09:00.000+08:00

Back in October I posted some photos of our rather empty apartment in Macau just after Leigh-Anne moved in:
Click for views just after Leigh-Anne signed the lease
In September I posted even earlier photos when we were just checking the place out...
Click for pre-move in pics
Yesterday I took some updated photos of how the place looks now that Leigh-Anne has added some furniture to it! The last of these 4 pics is still pretty 'spare,' because it's the spare room that will hopefully have my desk and computers in it mid-next year...hmmm... don't know how they're quite going to fit in there!

Macau - Pictures from our balcony

2006-12-23T11:02:00.000+08:00

Here are some photos from our balcony in Macau that I took yesterday. You can see the view over the reservoir (and beyond to the ocean); the ferry terminal (where you can get a ferry or helicopter to HK or Zhuhai); the road below; and the volcano that occasionally spews forth 'lava' (actually just giant bursts of gas-fuelled flames).

"A Week in Shanghai" (1999)

2006-12-19T10:04:00.000+08:00

...it's strange when you find old 'creations' lying around hard drives...

Shinkansen Pics from late November

2006-12-18T22:14:00.000+08:00

Just 2 pictures I took with my phone while we rode the bullet train from Osaka to Himeji Castle: one of the back of a seat, and another of Alex trying to rest her coat on a chair before we got bumped from 1st class. Great train, and loved the selection of food and drink that you could buy at the stations.

For the rest of my Japan pics, head on over to Flickr:
Jonathan's Flickr photos

Flickr

2006-12-18T21:53:00.001+08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

LA at Park 97 - December 10, 2006

2006-12-17T22:22:00.000+08:00

I just found this photo that was still 'trapped' inside my cameraphone. This is Leigh-Anne at Park 97, where we had brunch last Sunday before she returned to Macau. 'Park' has been one of our favorite brunch spots for a while now - a nice place for a couple to unwind and share some good food. Strangely, though, there always seems to be some kind of construction going on - this time there was the smell of glue coming out of the bathrooms (urgh), not to mention that the outdoor terrace had vanished, as workers were constructing...something.

Only 4 days to go, and then we'll be reunited in Macau! We're planning on doing a lot of hiking around nature, and enjoying the longest stretch of 'togetherness' that we'll have had since Leigh-Anne started working down there.

Wrapping up the year

2006-12-17T12:54:00.000+08:00

Well, it's almost over - goodbye, 2006. What an interesting/turbulent year! I began the year in Vientiane, Laos, just after Leigh-Anne and I flew down to Australia to spend Christmas with my family. We also went through Bangkok around then.

Leigh-Anne and I spent some of our summer in England, spending time wandering through the Cotswolds, over to Cheltenham, and of course walking around London.

Both of us have flown back and forth between Shanghai and Macau multiple times... and then there's HK to skip over to, of course.

Nathan and Cindy came and visited us in Shanghai before they toured around China, and then headed over to Scotland, where they're currently living and working.

At the end of November, I flew over to Osaka get certified as a teacher trainer for the ESL in the Mainstream Program, and I met the most amazing people; rode the bullet train to Himeji Castle; saw Osaka, Kobe, and beautiful Kyoto.

It's funny, I don't seem to remember squeezing so much into the year... maybe that's why I'm still sitting with my feet up on the coffee table at 1 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon!

The latest picture from my cameraphone: Francesca celebrates Christmas on Huaihai Lu after we finish traumatising fake watch salespeople.

Driver to Japanese Food & Fun

2006-10-14T04:36:00.000+08:00

Tonight I accompanied my friend Kerry Driver to a Japanese restaurant inside the Donghu Hotel complex. Aside from meeting interesting people in the arts and the social sciences, I also made contact with a Chinese lawyer. This conversation was extremely enlightening: I discovered something of the operation of international schools in China which I wasn't previously aware of. This picture features Kerry wearing my glasses... and there's no way you're going to see me wearing hers!

Macau apartment minimalism (ie. not much furniture yet)

2006-10-08T21:45:00.000+08:00

So here's the lastest batch of photos that Leigh-Anne took in the apartment in Macau this evening. Take special note of the sofa, because apparently the legs have already fallen off it, and I probably won't ever see that particular sofa! The pictures are about as raw as they could be, due to the fact that they were taken with a cameraphone, and then SMSed to me, but I can still feel the sea air as I'm looking out the bedroom and the living room windows at that relaxing blue glow...