The Story of Stuff

Ran across this amazing video about The Story of Stuff by stumbling across C. Wess Daniels' blog, gathering in light, where he says:

"you’ll enjoy it, learn from it and be challenged by it. I know I was. I like the fact that its really well done, Annie, the host doesn’t brow beat anyone, she’s candid, has her facts straight and uses some fun and creative animation to help tell her story. Her story has a little more teeth to it than other enviro-films, in that she tackles production, marketing, consumption, waste as well as the politics behind this stuff."
If your net connection is very good then see the original video, otherwise I recommend the following:

Total blackout

Following on from the previous post about the blog's new colour scheme, and the objective to minimise the strain on the eyes, I've done some more customisation:

What's included:

• Firefox Stylish add-on with Dark theme 2008 style - turns background colour of ALL web pages into the dark grey with light grey text and blue/purple links. To change the predominantly dark grey to black colour, go to Stylish --> Manage Styles --> Dark theme 2008--> Edit. Change the first - from the top down - colour code number from #111515 to #000000; as in:

body, span, background, select, form, td, th, tr, p, dd, dt {
background:#000000 !important;
color:#CCCCCC !important;
}

• Firefox RedShift theme - turns the light grey of the Firefox default theme into black/red.
  

• Zune theme - turns the bright blues and light greys of the Windows XP theme into black.

Moreover, on Lifehacker you can find out how to swap colours on the Notebook, and Adobe Reader. For Adobe, go to Edit --> Preferences --> Accessibility --> Replace Document Colours).

For MSWord, go to Format Menu --> Background, and then select the desired colour.

...!

Earthly Face Lift

The new colour scheme for the blog is inspired by the 'Earth Hour' - the 'green' initiative that started in Sydney last year. The initiative simply aims to educate and encourage people on how to be more energy efficient. This year Earth hour became a global movement, e.g. receiving Google's support. Google produced the main page in black, instead of traditional white, for an hour in some countries. A similar version is still available as the customised search engine Blackle (thanks Vesna and Tom for introducing me to it; - more info).

Whereas a predominately black screen uses less energy then the white screen (black colour requires zero energy from red green and blues sources, where as to create white, a maximum energy output from all three sources is required - non applicable to LCD screens. Credit to Björn for pointing it out; see the comments), ...the more immediate benefit is for your eyes. The predominantly unlit screen is much easier on the eyes as one doesn't need to stare into the headlights all day...!

Hua Hin

Thailand, part 3. (Part: 2, 1.)

This time it was a lazy holiday with Roza before her carrier move to Dubai.

Apart from exploring a bit around Hua Hin, and couple of Bangkok centres this holiday was all bout:

• Beach,
• Singha,
• Seafood,
• ...;)
  

Now, that's what I call

holiday...!

Melbourne Visit

Now customary, Easter Break visit back (to parent's) home. Unlike before last year's visit, this time I did not send the spam mail announcing that I'm coming. As having less then a week is not enough to catch up with all the friends. Last time trying to see most friends, I felt that I didn't spend enough time with the family, so tried to change that this time around.

Though, none the less I didn't get to spend as much time with family as I wanted. During this visit, lots of the time went into reinstalling operating system on the home PC, and setting up few necessary applications that my parents would need. This complete overhaul was necessary even after Jay tried getting the bugs out on few occasions - thanks Jay. After couple of days of on-and-off work, everything seemed just the way I wanted it. Everything but the sound. And I tried, and I tried obsessively so much to get it to work that my parents got upset as I was still at it, trying yet another sound card driver 90min before the flight. (Just spoke to my Mum earlier today, PC is unusable as it keeps shutting down unexpectedly soon after starting. After all that effort to fix software issues, there seems to be a hardware one - time for a new box).

On the bright side, the year passes by and Melbourne looks real good. Everyone I managed to catch up with is healthy, doing well, and making progress with their careers, their Phd-s, their whatevers - life as usual. (Mum's ankle improved so much that she and Dad can go for their daily walk, albeit not yet as intensely as before the break)

Keep up, hope to see you all next time around...!

Life's good

When everything starts to go wrong...
...REMEMBER, things can be much worse!!!

I got married

Just something along the lines of Google buying Facebook - ha ha ha haaaa

Ps: wouldn't be surprised if it happens soon, the Google one that is.