Rome II

So – on my way back through Rome I decided to stay in a cooler area. Closer to the traditional stuff and much busier. It felt completely different. It was pretty cool the apartment window opened up onto the gardens of some palace. Pretty cool view.

So I went out that night and wow, the romans are kind acrazy (but cool). The city was vibrant with lots of people out and about. very friendly. It was good to see people out having a good time and not trashed on alcohol. There was some march through the city (maybe part of occupy) and people just came outside and spontaneously joined it as it progressed. Found some good food, nice bars, friendly people and just wandered checking out the place. The next day i went to the vatican. Wow. so much money within the walls, so little outside. I did still have a good feel to it and you could really feel the history/religion in the place. the sistine chapel I thought was over-rated. It’s no longer a chruch – just hundreds of people in a room being told to be quite and lookig up at the roof. Michaelangelo’s cathedral on the otherhand was amazing.

Anyway – a few random pics for you to enjoy (from the camera phone as the point and shoot ran out of battery a couple of times).

Florence:

Il Duomo:

Vatican:

Michaelangelo’s:

Emirates:

I’ll do the proper photos soon….

 

 

al images are copyright to me, aaron irving. Use and Die.

How to beat the system

You may be wondering “which system”? No – i am not talking about the NHMRC, or tattslotto or even the carbon tax. I am talking about Dettol handwash. You see – anyone with a bit of germophobia/microbiology background knows that things like soap dispensers end up full of bacteria. Using a sensor system can keep the handle clean. Dettol sells these little sensor handwash dispensers that are great for your own bathroom. Now the problem is that it is all designed to be single use. You pay more for a single use (250ml) container of soap then you do for a 500ml refill for the oldschool soap dispensers (manual). I am not a fan of single use plastic items, it’s a waste for the environment and a waste of money most of the time.

So – basically all you need to do is cut a hole into the bottom (therefore top) of the single use soap containers and you can refill them using a 50ml syringe.

See:

- The hole doesn’t disturb the pressure (enough anyway) so t still flows well.

- I made the hole big enough for the tip of the 50ml syringe (without a needle).

and voila.

 

 

And no, I don’t have too much time on my hands…

Perth–S&J’s wedding

A little while back I went to lil old Perth for the first time. The cool little city finally got to experience myself and all I have to offer. In a way it reminded me of the goldcoast but a more like the old non-touristy goldcoast, crossed with toowoomba. Definitely had a QLD-esque feel to it though.

The reason of the visit – Sean and Jess were having a (semi)-surprise wedding instead of an engagement party as they are heading off to the US soon. You guys will be missed.

Anyway – a taste of perth… (from the point & shoot camera)

random buildings

old mixed with new

one crazy ass ye olde laneway

 

random artwork all over the city

I found good coffee! greenhouse, 100 St Georges Tce.

some of the crew

guess which one is sean?

Nobody dances like the argentinians. Go lu.

yeah – I realise I had a few on the camera phone (new mozart 7 does a good job in daylight) but ahh well, you can deal.

twitter

Well – in case you haven’t noticed that random feed to the right –> I use twitter occasionally. For those that don’t follow my feed is @aignome . Now I don’t take it serious and I only occasionally post. NOrmally it is a random thought or rant. Sometimes it is forwarding a cool pic or video, sometimes a sick pic or video (mainly retweeting Alex / @uberjan). Occasionally I will link a site to it to forward something like a link.

Anyway – the world is changing. This form of social media has a lot of potential for advertising and networking. If it is used well It can be great. Some of the threads you can follow vary as to how relevant they are. I often add the hashtags to my posts for say #foxsports if I am following a game and want to comment on it (p.s. Foxsports – play more damn soccer and less fricken AFL. That is not why I subscribed to foxtel). Sometimes I will post something for a charity using its hashtag, sometimes for #protectresearch - the current media campaign/protest to help prevent a $400M budget cut to the NHMRC that is in the current draft. I also use #tc to update the status on thecity. Thecity is a powerful social networking site for cool people (christians).

A Hashtag I recently came across was #1stworldproblems. It is fricken hilarious. The mundane things that people in the first world want to bitch about. Of course they are only partly sarcastic about it. You can tell these actually do bug them. A good way to take a look and laugh at the consumerism that is modern 1st world life.

A few things to share

I am all for GMO’s – I mean seriously – half the damn crops we eat today barely resemble the natural parental crop – so whether it is lab generated or generated by intensive growth selection by farmers, the end result is the same. However – some things you don’t mess with. This story for example - http://blog.friendseat.com/kraft-uses-genetically-engineered-growth-hormone/ seems a little disturbing and is certainly worth reading into. The recombinant growth hormone fed to cattle in the US dairy industry generally would not be a good thing. particularly if the higher IGF-1 levels are significant.

Also – how evil does my cat look in this picture. He looks kind of posessed.

Two funny videos from youtube:

Randomness

and a bit of fun/cruelty…

cat laser pointer bowling

Oh and don’t forget this one from the ch10 news desk.

http://youtu.be/j8Bc7eRTdWY

In other random news – invitrogen now has the fluorescence spectra viewer as an app for iOS. The ipad2 came out and it has a pretty cool cover – the other updates are less than expected.

My phone bill is expensive.. my cat is crazy. i’m off to adelaide for four days and I seem to still have a job – albeit with a lot of hardcore microscopy.

I have foxtel – yay for full res sports rather than B grade streams that constantly cut out.

And yeah – science is still as despressive as ever… well life is lately too – but c’est la vie.