Ross M. W. Bennetts

More than one AFC

Ross — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:07:09 +0000

Today I finished reading ‘The Game’ by Neil Strauss. It’s a fascinating read, although I wouldn’t say it really had a happy ending. I think the message is: have confidence, be yourself and don’t get so hooked on a girl before she even knows you exist that it makes you overly nervous and you end up scaring her away.

I started reading ‘The Game’ after throughly enjoying one of Neil’s other books, ‘Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life’ which I saw mentioned on Boing Boing Gadgets.

I think I personally enjoyed ‘Emergency’ more than ‘The Game’, but they were both very well written and fascinating insights into cultural niches that I honestly knew very little about before reading Neil’s books.

All that talk about PUAs and AFCs was fascinating and it was an interesting coincidence that I got a letter about the other AFC today. The NSW Office of Fair Trading wrote to me to let me know that the Armidale Food Co-Op will finally be completely dissolved in 90 days.

It was sad to be on the Board of Directors who had to shut the place down. Unfortunately, the AFC had developed so much debt over the years that there was little chance of trading out of it. I was pretty keen to get a loan from the local credit union and attempt to re-float the operation, but nobody else supported that idea and the Board ended up voting to shut it down.

In a way, what has risen from the ashes (The Food Shed and the Goldfish Bowl Bakery) is bigger and better than anyone could ever have expected…

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-07

Ross — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:14:00 +0000

The seething sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us #
I think there was more than one mime at the Vancouver Winter Olympics Closing Ceremony… Neil Young may have been the only real singer… #
I think Avril was singing… but I'm pretty sure Alanis is lip-synching now… Oh Canada! #
RT @TENPARINPOCHE: Udumbara flowers or lacewing eggs? http://su.pr/5d8Icz #
RT @MtnTopMastiffs: Emotional GPS: How Lost Dogs Find Their Way Home | Psychology Today http://bit.ly/apRa12 #
RT @hermanthebold: Armidale selected to trial the NBN http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/02/2834482.htm #
I think I just saw a StreetView car in Armidale on Dangar St… #
w00t! inbox0 achieved #
Fresh from the front yard… http://twitpic.com/16wlu0 #

TED: Seth Godin on the tribes we lead

Ross — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:42:04 +0000

Today’s video is Seth Godin at TED2009 and in it he gives an inspiring talk about ‘tribes’ and ‘creating a movement’. Seth’s Blog is one I try to read everyday, I suggest you go check it out. And if you don’t know what TED is you should go there too.

You might have noticed that I have been tinkering away behind the scenes and there are a few new things here on the rossbennetts.com blog:

WP Greet Box is going to say hi when you first visit a post, and it delivers a tailored message depending upon where you came from… I think it’s pretty cool.
‘Ads by Google’ have appeared in the sidebar using the Easy AdSense plugin and under photos and videos (with AdSense Under Image: reloaded)… I’ve tried to keep them minimal and relatively discrete… if you see anything that interests you, please click the link everybody has bills to pay.
I’ve imported many of the posts from my two other blogs over on Blog.une, Owe My Eyeball and Ross M. W. Blog. That meant I had to install the “Viper’s Video Quicktags” plugin, which almost seamlessly allowed me to import the video previously embedded with Anarchy Media Player which is getting a bit old these days.

There are more changes coming… just you wait… I hope you enjoy…

Dugong

Ross — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:03:05 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jade Buddha

Ross — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:20:44 +0000

Jade Buddha for Universal Peace

Wow… a blog free week… I’d better get back into it…

Pictured above is the Jade Buddha for Universal Peace on stage at HH Dalai Lama’s Awakening the Mind teachings in Sydney, December 2009

I’ve had some interesting ideas for posts… stay tuned… I’ll be back

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-28

Ross — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:14:00 +0000

"AARNet provides unmetered access to Akamai's cached content" http://j.mp/9ueady #
It's happening again… I'm watching blog.une die under load from mysqld & save… What's going on… Started at 6:30pm on the dot.., #
perhaps somebody has scheduled a MySQL dump that is not being nice… #
RT @JayOatway: The Dalai Lama joins Twitter – http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/02/twitter-dalai-lama.html Follow @DalaiLama #
A friendly koala is watching over ITD today http://twitpic.com/150s2x #
here comes 'save' again… I'm watching you… #
looks like it is peaking at a load average ~2.0 tonight… by this time last night it was climbing to 30+… much nicer… thank you #
load average was ~5-6 when I left the office at 7pm… Blog was still loading, albeit slowly… home now and it is back down to ~0.1… Joy! #
"YouTube to kill IE6 support on March 13" http://j.mp/aanDxr #
RT @stevesong: Society might be better off if you let big banks fail. Michael Jordaan – CEO FNB #hpvconf2010 #
"What's Coming in WordPress 3.0 (Features)" http://j.mp/bVaT2t #
#FollowFriday @space_cadet @hermanthebold @Sujatin @bunnypatella @UNESupport @jencsage @BeauJoh @ozdj @dannyarcher @dannychoo @DalaiLama #
will xbmc on a winxp eeebox be better than xbmc on my xbox1? #
XBMC or should I make a Boxee EeeBox? #
$6 per slice of cheesecake & they are getting 16 slices per cake… That's a $96 cheesecake… Wow… @gloriajeans #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-02-21

Ross — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:14:00 +0000

~daily posts, a few retweets and a proper google crawl = http://rossbennetts.com analytics stats up 2000% #
just as I was about to hang my Iron Tiger Prayer Flags, it started pouring with rain… "let the rain of the vast and profound Dharma fall" #
be careful what you wish for… I wanted ice cream… someone just threw a McFlurry out of their car into my front yard… #
mmm… the fail whale is back… http://bit.ly/bY0pit #
It disturbs me to see the biased & distorted world view developed by those who rely on tv & newspapers for their education #
When I attempt to correct their deluded views, they get angry and call me an idiot… #
Must do Tong Len for them all… Om mani padme hum… #
"The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession" S. Holmes #
The work that Curtin, Swinburne, Otago, et al., are doing with iTunesU & iPhone makes UNE look so far behind the 8-ball… #
Where I used to see glamour, now I just see too much makeup, Botox, pushup bras & plastic surgery… It's a fakery… #
Yum… An organic coffee from Fundies Cafe in Byron Bay… http://twitpic.com/148w1r #
$69 for a t-shirt… Oh, that's right… I'm in Byron Pay… #

Benihana

Ross — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:26:51 +0000

Benihana Teppanyaki

So much wonderful food… I think I ate to excess during the AUC meeting at the Surfers Paradise Marriott… Buffet Breakfast, Buffet Lunch & Benihana Teppanyaki for Dinner… Perhaps I need to go and have a bit of a lie down…

Apple University Consortium General Meeting

Ross — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:04:48 +0000

Apple University Consortium General Meeting 2010

As the Apple University Consortium Development Fund representative at the University of New England I get to hand out a bunch of scholarships each year, and I am currently attending the AUC General Meeting at the Marriott Surfers Paradise Resort & Spa.

Apple and the AUC always treat us very well at these events, and the food and accommodation are usually excellent. Dinner tonight is teppanyaki at Benihana’s Japanese Steakhouse… yum…

Winter Olympics

Ross — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 09:44:54 +0000

I won a 'Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games' prize pack

I have been watching a little bit of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics over the last few days and it reminded me that back in November 2009 I won a really cool prize pack from Vooks , Australia’s leading Nintendo Wii & DS information, news & game reviews site.

Here is the link to the original competition and here is the page with the ‘Winners’ announcement… I am ‘Ross B’ and my prize winning suggestion was to have Beach Volleyball at the Winter Olympics.

Daniel Vuckovic, who runs the site, is very friendly and really knows his Nintendo stuff, go check out Vooks.net or visit the Vooks fan page on FaceBook if you have a Nintendo Wii, DS or DSi…