Jul 4, 2004

We have a cat. Or, rather, we don’t have a cat. But there is a cat. She lives somewhere in the neighbourhood, and seems to think that we’re her second home. This is a happy arrangement for all concerned: we have all the fun of owning a cat, without all of the annoying feeding and litter-box-changing and licence-obtaining - except for one of the flatmates, who for some reason loathes cats.

Jun 2, 2004

Google should be trumpeting this from the rooftops. “We’re going to beat Yahoo at their own game! We’re going to take our search technology, apply it to web discussion groups like we did to Usenet, and thump those lamers from Sunnyvale!” Instead, it’s squirreled away in an unfashionable corner of Google Labs, just waiting to be prodded and poked until it’s ready to be launched, and become the next Gmail-esque addition to the stable of things that Google does so much better than Yahoo and Microsoft.

May 21, 2004

If you’ve spent any time observing the financial markets, or watched the talking heads on Business Sunday, you’ve probably gained the impression that currency markets are driven by fundamentals - interest rates, trade balances - or maybe by technical factors - moving averages, candlesticks, the entrails of a goat. Nope. What really happens was best illustrated around midday today, Australian eastern time. About five minutes before midday (UTC+10), the pound sterling (GBP, sterling, cable, or whatever other name it goes by) suddenly plummeted sixty points in about five minutes.

May 12, 2004

Does anyone else remember the time, back in the late ‘90s, when American daytraders discovered an Australian company called Email Ltd. (now owned by Smorgon Steel), and proceeded to bid its price up into the stratosphere before they realised that it was a steel-and-whitegoods group? Well… Who says those days are over? Spotted on the Reuters wire this morning: 04:36 12May2004 RTRS-UPDATE 1-HEI leaps on erroneous Google ownership report (Adds details, share price) NEW YORK, May 11 (Reuters) - HEI Inc.

Mar 27, 2004

Have to blog this before it disappears. Peach Blossom: The Official Version In a Collins glass or highball glass: 1 shot peach schnapps (prefer Archers) 1⁄2 shot Cointreau (triple sec) Juice of 1⁄2 orange Lemonade White sugar Squeeze of lemon juice Splash the alcohols into the bottom of a glass, then juice the orange and mix well. Add lemonade almost to top, then sprinkle sugar over to soften the foam (which is characteristic of any time you use fresh juice).