Thee blog has moved

Hello world… I am now here at a new address: luke.zeekdesign.com (lukefreeman.com.au)

Hope to get back to more blogging

Also new email is me [at] lukefreeman.com.au

Ryan… could you please update on the blogfeed?Ta ta 

New Aboriginal Laws

In response to David’s post: Aboriginal PaternalismCorrect me if I am wrong though but when I was in the Northern territory the aboriginal women said that they wanted to be treated equally as whites, we replied “in what way” and replied along the lines of “If a white kid doesn’t show up to school, the school has to follow it up. If a white kid has been abused the government will step in. If a white women is abused they will press charges against the husband”.I may be wrong but the impression that I get is that the laws apply for all whites and blacks in the areas equally.The UN has declared that we are the only first world country that contains an entire third world existence, they say it is an embarrassment, at least the government is seriously looking at the issue again instead of just throwing money at it.There may be a lot of problems but things like food vouchers will actually mean that the kids get the food instead of their parents spending the money on alcohol.I have been in the outback, I have seen how it operates, I haven’t seen it all, but at least it is being discussed.

You grew up in Australia in the 90s if…

1. You watched the ABC more than any other station. Those days are long gone.
2. You made worms by squeezing your Vegemite or peanut butter crackers together.
3. The best parties always had fairy bread.
4. The Waugh twins. Go! Aussie! Go!
5. Super League almost ruining rugby league in Australia.
6. Getting the Easter Show guide from the paper and circling all the show bags you wanted.
7. You thought everyone in America carried a gun and you never wanted to go there because you were were scared you’d get shot.
8. Blinky Bill, Mr Squiggle and Gumby.
9. You always used to see that dried out, white dog poo on the footpath. You never see that anymore.
10. SuperTed, Widget The World Watcher and Samurai Pizza Cats.
11. Going to the Easter Show with a big group of friends from school once you were old enough to go without Mum and Dad
12. Doing research for school projects by going to the library or looking up an encyclopaedia rather than using the internet.
13. Brian Henderson and Richard Morecroft reading the news.
14. Paul Keating was some guy that ran the country and John Howard became the only PM you really ever knew because you were too young to care before that.
15. Banana Man, Bangers and Mash and The Raggy Dolls.
16. Game Boy.
17. Waking up early everyday to watch Agro’s Cartoon Connection or Cheez TV.
18. Hey Hey It’s Saturday.
19. Everyone got the Coke bag at the Easter Show and it was only $10.
20. Buying those 6 packs of Coco Pops, Fruit Loops, Frosties, Rice Bubbles, Nutri-Grain and Corn Flakes so you could have a different one each day and then opening the packets really carefully and removing the cereal so you’d have a mini wardrobe afterwards. You also most probably just let your parents eat the Corn Flakes.
21. Trying to make the Rainbow Road shortcut on Mario Kart 64.
22. Postman Pat, Fireman Sam and Lift Off (that show with the dirty, eye-less doll named EC).
23. Playing GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 and arguing over whether Oddjob was allowed to be used in multiplayer.
24. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
25. Super International Cricket on the SNES.
26. Arguing over which was better – Nintendo 64 or PlayStation.
27. Don’t push me, push a push pop!
28. Nobody made “not” jokes… NOT!!
29. Bathurst stopped being Holden vs. Ford and all those European cars came in until they came to their senses.
30. Who shot Mr Burns?
31. Watching Captain Planet and then driving your parents mad by always singing the song.
32. That’s so funny, I forgot to laugh.
33. WWE was WWF and they actually had cool wrestlers like The Rock, Mankind and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
34. Playing Gran Turismo and MGS on PlayStation.
35. Roller coasters at Wonderland, Sydney.
36. You decorated your room with glow-in-the-dark stickers.
37. SBS didn’t have any ads. Not that you ever watched it anyway, except maybe for softcore porn.
38. You played marbles and could name all the different types like blue moon, oily, candy, red wine, galaxy and red devil. You never played anyone for your god marble.
39. Feeling sad when your Tamagotchi died.
40. Singing “a ram sam sam, a ram sam sam, guli guli guli guli guli, ram sam sam, a rafi, a rafi, guli guli guli guli guli ram sam sam”.
41. Seeing a small rack of DVDs in the video store and wondering if anyone ever rented them.
42. Dolly the sheep.
43. Getting up early to watch the Rage Top 50.
44. Friends when they were all actually just friends. Why didn’t Phoebe and Joey get together?
45. Sonic the Hedgehog.
46. Watching The Simpsons back when it was funny, every night on Channel 10.
47. Power Rangers becoming cooler than the Ninja Turtles, even though the Turtles will always be cooler.
48. Watching South Park for the first time and being really excited by all the swearing.
49. Watching Hercules and then being disappointed when Xena Warrior Princess replaced it. Nobody was cooler than Herc.
50. Blowing on the Nintendo cartridge before putting it in the console to make sure it worked properly.
51. Smell the cheese.
52. Vulcan, Tower, Flame… Australian Gladiators.
53. Playing Mortal Kombat and trying to do a fatality but just ending up punching accidentally.
54. Pokemon! Gotta catch ‘em all!
55. Watching Hey Dad! and then seeing little Arthur McArthur go on to star in that famous Sorbent ad.
56. Full Frontal, not Comedy Inc.
57. Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem.
58. Downloading music from Napster.
59. Chatting with your buddies on ICQ.
60. Going to see Titanic.
61. The winner is…Sydney.
62. Mighty Max and Polly Pocket. Max and Polly always got lost because they were so bloody small.
63. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
64. Waiting for Tony “Plugger” Lockett to break that record.
65. Australia didn’t always win the cricket.
66. The Socceroos couldn’t qualify for the World Cup.
67. John Eales captained the Wallabies and we won the World Cup.
68. Ray Martin hosted A Current Affair.
69. Zoopa Doopa ice blocks were only 20c and if you couldn’t afford it, you asked the canteen lady to cut it in half so you could split it with a friend.
70. Listening to boy bands like Human Nature and girl bands like Girlfriend.
71. Barbie, not Bratz.
72. The Spice Girls.
73. Happy Meals were only $2.95 and the toys were simple but actually good.
74. Person 1: Who farted!?  -  Person 2: Whoever smelt it, dealt it!  -  Person 1: Whoever made the rhyme, commited the crime!
75. Brad Fittler was the best in the world.
76. Thorpe won lots of gold medals and wasn’t so gay.
77. Opposite day.
78. We all loved Pat Rafter and almost cried when he lost to Goran Ivanisevic because our Pat deserved that title more than anyone. Definitely more than Hewitt ever did.
79. Playing tackle Bull Rush at lunchtime and having tackling banned. You had to resort to grab 1-2-3 or tip. Same goes for footy.
80. Giving a friend a backage in the canteen line. If it was your best friend, you gave them a frontage.
81. Pogs and Looney Tunes Tazos.
82. Nobody won Wimbledon unless their name was Pete Sampras.
83. You laughed at the fat kid on the Cottees cordial ad and changed the song to “My Dad picks his nose…” 
84. You ate Smarties instead of M&M’s.
85. You tried Dr. Pepper and hated it.
86. Service stations didn’t need space for 4 digits on their petrol prices signs.
87. Girl germs! Boy germs!
88. Goosebumps.
89. You had to actually call your friends rather than send them an SMS.
90. Wearing a Chicago Bulls T-shirt or cap. Wearing the cap backwards.
91. Arguing over who got to be Warnie in backyard cricket. Six and out!
92. Paul Jennings’Gizmo books.
93. Matchbox cars.
94. The feeling of wonder you got, the first time you were able to see the image in one of those Magic Eye 3D pictures.
95. The Secret World of Alex Mack.
96. Talk to the hand!
97. Johnson and Friends, Noddy and Humphrey B. Bear.
98. You wished you had enough Lego to build those amazing cities they displayed in the brochures.
99. Collecting Yowie toys. Aussie wildlife was way cooler than any stupid Kinder Surprise toy.
100. Playing truth or dare with your secret crush.
101. Mark Taylor equalling Don Bradman’s record.
102. Slap bracelets.
103. Jurassic Park and those toy dinosaurs where you could pull a piece of the skin out to see its insides.
104. Roger Ramjet, he’s our man, hero of our nation.
105. We had paper money.
106. Telling those Dobbers where to stick it by singing, “Dibba dobba dibba dobba number nine, wearing nappies all the time” and, “Dibba dobba Cindy went to kindy, stepped on a bindy wa wa wa.”
107. Good on ya Mum! Tip Top’s the one!
108. You could buy more than enough food from the school canteen for only $2.
109. Begging your parents to go to McDonald’s for dinner.
110. Rocko’s Modern Life, Rugrats and Hey Arnold!
111. Noni, Monica and that bald guy named George on Play School.
112. Going to World 4 Kids to look at all the toys.
113. Watching The Lion King and feeling Simba’s pain when Mufasa died. Disney just doesn’t make them like that anymore.
114. Soft serve cones were only 30c and they never tried to up-sell a Flake because they didn’t have it.
115. Wanting a Brain or Silver Bullet during the yo-yo craze.
116. Nesquik without the Nes.
117. Troll Dolls.
118. The Kids’ Works at Pizza Hut with unlimited drink refills. You made an ice cream mountain covered in choc chips and marshmallows and could never finish it.
119. Thomas the Tank Engine and TUGS.
120. Ba-na-na-na-na! Ba-na-na-na-na! Make those bodies sing! 
121. You had to get your photos developed.
122. Your family didn’t own a 4WD unless it was a real one like a Land Cruiser or Patrol. Range Rovers were tough and nobody thought BMW would make a 4WD, let alone Porsche.
123. Street Sharks and Biker Mice From Mars
124. Competing with your friends to see who could eat the most sour Warheads in one go.
125. The Channel 9 logo had dots next to it and the Channel 7 logo wasn’t a folded piece of paper.
126. No Hat, no play.
127. Dr. Dreadful Food Labs. Kids these days wouldn’t be allowed that because its not healthy enough. We didn’t give a shit about our health in the 90’s.
128. High five! Up high, down low, too slow!
129. Watching Round the Twist and getting pissed off that the actors kept on changing. You still loved it though.
130. Cheating in Heads Down, Thumbs Up.
131. Watching that game show called Vidiot. Game shows didn’t have to be educational back then, like That’s Academic… that show sucks.
132. Collecting basketball cards, whether you followed basketball or not.
133. You always wished your parents had bought you a bigger Super Soaker for Christmas. Christmas is hot in Australia… the more water, the better.
134. Collecting hundreds of tickets from Timezone just so you could trade them for some crappy prize that you could have bought from Woolies for ten bucks.
135. Healthy Harold day was the best because you got to miss class to sit in a tiny caravan and listen to a talking giraffe.
136. Playing handball with Ace, King, Queen and Dunce and making up stupid rules as you went along.
137. Skipping ropes and Jump Rope for Heart Day.
138. Chewing the crappy gum in Bubble-O-Bill’s nose and wishing they could just use Hubba Bubba instead.
139. A*mazing.
140. The Ferals. Rattus, Modigliana, Derryn and Mixy were cool until they started that five minute piece of crap, Feral TV.
141. Hypercolour T-shirts.
142. Who Dares! Who Dares! Who Dares Wins!
143. Having your very own Dollarmites account and getting really excited when you earned a tiny bit of interest.
144. Growing up in Australia in the 90’s was rad.

Via: Facebook

You know you are Australian when…

Starting a new category today: How you know you are Australian

Number One

You’re familiar with Neighbours, Home and Away, Playschool, A Country Practice, Norman Gunston, Barry Humphries, Blue Heelers, Ray Martin, Bert Newton, Lisa McCune, Jon Burgess, Number 96, Molly Meldrum, Kerry O’Brien, and of course, Kerry Packer and Rupert Murdoch.

Safari 3 & STILL NO INTERNET

Well, after a week, we still have no internet at home!!

In other news Safari 3 is out… its great… and it is out for windows… windows users, please check it out and let me know what you think, so far its the fastest browser for a PC I have ever experienced. Although I love it, I am a bit sad that they didn’t respect PC users and make it look more familiar to them.

Check it out here: apple.com/safari

Off to pearly

Well, I am off, up to pearl beach, to drown myself in Uni work, complete essays and catch up on readings for exams (about 900 pages!).

Wish me Luck!

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“I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.” -Federico Fellini

Grand Canyon Photographer

From an email:

This is a case of photographer photographing photographer. The following photographs were taken by photographer Hans van de Vorst at the Grand Canyon, Arizona. The descriptions are his own. The identity of the photographer in the photos is unknown.

I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary rock in the Grand Canyon. The canyon’s depth is 900 meters here. The rock on the right is next to the canyon and safe.

Watching this guy on his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod I asked myself 3 questions:

1. How did he climb that rock?

2. Why not taking that sunset picture on that rock to the right, which is perfectly safe?

3. How will he get back?

This is the point of no return.

After the sun set behind the canyon’s horizon he packed his things (having only one hand available) and prepared himself for the jump. This took about 2 minutes. At that point he had the full attention of the crowd.

After that, he jumped on his thong sandals…The canyon’s depth is 900 meters here.

Now you can see that the adjacent rock is higher so he tried to land lower, which is quite steep and tried to use his one hand to grab the rock.

We’ve come to the end of this story. Look carefully at the photographer. He has a camera, a tripod and also a plastic bag, all on his shoulder or in his left hand. Only his right hand is available to grab the rock and the weight of his stuff is a problem.

He lands low on his flip flops; both his right hand and right foot slips away. At that moment I take this shot.

He pushes his body against the rock. He waits for a few seconds, throws his stuff on the rock, climbs and walks away.

From snopes.com:

One common technique employed by stage magicians in pulling off convincing illusions is to show only part of something, suggest the whole, then take advantage of the human mind’s tendency to fill in the blanks. For example, a magician might announce that he is holding a knife and show the audience a blade sticking out of his clenched fist, knowing full well that onlookers will naturally assume the knife’s handle is inside his hand (when, in fact, the knife has no handle at all).

That’s the principle at work in the images displayed above (taken by photographer Hans van de Vorst), which seemingly show another photographer making a foolhardy, death-defying leap across two Grand Canyon outcroppings — wearing only sandals on his feet, and clutching his photographic gear in one hand! The key to the illusion is what the viewer doesn’t see (thereby leading him to make inaccurate assumptions about the whole).

The area shown is a popular photographic spot in the Grand Canyon, for the very reason demonstrated above: if a photographer frames his picture just right, he can make it appear that his subject is leaping across a yawning chasm where the slightest misstep will seemingly result in the risk-taker’s plummeting hundreds (if not thousands) of feet to certain death on the canyon floor below. What one doesn’t see in these kinds of close shots is the connecting ledge just beneath the two rock formations, revealing that the jumper who misses his mark risks falling only a short ways, not plunging “900 meters“:

Although the leap still has an element of danger to it, a reasonably careful jumper primarily risks some bruises or maybe a broken arm or leg, not a plunge into the depths of the Grand Canyon.

Have you heard any stories, or got any emails that proved to be untrue/misleading…? Try looking one up someday!

From YouTube:

7 Tips to Outsourcing Technical Work

From: Okdork.com

There might come a time when you’ll want to outsource some kind of technical or clerical work (for any number of reasons). Here is what I’ve learned from outsourcing many different projects to people in India, Russia, Pakistan and other countries.

1. Go to a big market place – You can search on Google for companies that will do the work for you or you can hit one of the big marketplaces. Going with Google is not recommended…
2. Define your project in detail – I like this step because while coming up with a full plan and project scope I am forced to think of…
3. Use an escrow or third party for payments – in the initial agreement I usually state that 1/3 of price to…
4. Tie production to money – tie a schedule and production to money rewards or punishments. For instance, if the product is late…
5. Be available and encourage communication – Somewhere you did not explain what you meant and the provider might assume something that…
6. Always have an agreement – because of cultural, country and technical-know-how differences, what you think…
7. Expect to be surprised – All except for one project that I have had done for me ended in a satisfactory or…

7 Tips to Outsourcing Technical Work was written by Andre Nosalsky.

RSS defined for dummies

From How to explain RSS the Oprah way via 37signals.com:

The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?”

So, to make RSS much easier to understand, in Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place. How cool is that?

Great way of explaining it huh!

Thinking of that, how do you explain techy things to the non-tech (or how was it explained to you)?

Random (“thoughtless”) acts of design

IDEO designer Jane Fulton Suri figures out unmet consumer needs by watching ordinary people doing ordinary things.

Thoughtless Acts is her book that shows random acts of design witnessed in everyday life. Some shots from the book below.