Rubénerd :)

With the Australian federal elections less than a week away, I decided to plot on a handy table the positions of the leading two parties and their leaders that matter to me. This way I can make a more informed decision, and ultimately help others.

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And if Optus had checked their records, they’d have seen I already did this and could have saved themselves the money of sending this message! Its funny sometimes to see companies ruled by indiscriminate computer systems that don’t have common sense programmed into them.

It’s time to start worrying.

Labor has lost its substantial two-party preferred lead against the coalition in just two weeks, the latest Newspoll has found. [...] The poll, taken between Friday and Sunday, found Labor and the coalition are split 50-50.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a Labor fan (at least not any more), but the prospect of this guy being our PM is absolutely terrifying. We don’t need another anti-intellectial theocracy.

From a tech perspective I’m guessing we’re screwed either way, unless enough people vote below the line and oust Stephen Conroy, or enough Labor ministers grow spines to stand up against the filter, or enough Greens are elected to put pressure on Labor to straighten up and fly right, or a decent combination of all three.

We all suspected as much, but now it’s official: the readers of (uh, Zoo Weekly) have dubbed Stephen Conroy the dumbest politician in Australia.

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For a brief period of time this evening, Australia watched Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott debate over who would best serve the country as PM by dodging questions, not proposing constructive steps towards any environmental action and expelling much hot air about boat people in a way Pauline Hanson would be proud. Third party candidates like Bob Brown or Fiona Patten who would have made the debate interesting (or even just useful) were not invited.

I watched by proxy through Twitter. Don’t think I missed much.

1. Nah. Unless they started sending me cupcakes.
2. Their decision, not ours.

At least it wasn’t Australian Idol or a Big Brother celebrity special, I suppose.

sbsnews: Abbott and Gillard’s debate will be moved to avoid clashing with #MasterChef on Sunday http://bit.ly/9CCxcW

In other news, this is the first post to showcase my brand new graphic to be displayed with pride on each of my Aussie election posts. It’s amazing what 5 minutes in The Gimp and a complete disregard for good design can do :).

Aussie telco Telstra has launched their new Internet and Cyber-safety website for Australian internet users. Shouldn’t the word "safety" also be capitalised? No American spell checker I don’t mean capitalized!

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The contrast, colour and details on the buildings are terrible, but adjusting the RAW and exporting like this was the only way I could hope to match the colour of the sky out the window this morning. I reckon the real thing was even deeper and bluer than this!

I tell you what, I prefer the climate in Singapore, but nowhere on earth has better skies than Australia :). Except maybe Ireland earlier this year, they had epic skies when we weren’t trapped in a snowbank for long enough to see it.

The rule of thirds is way off, but I like this picture for some reason. Really like all the blue, especially those random flares at the bottom which I can’t account for at all. Ghosts?

Also makes for an interesting contrast with my photo of Singapore a few days ago.