Trashing the constituency

When our elected representatives are out there trashing “welfare bludgers,” they create the conditions for policies that hurt us all. And I’m left wondering, how do we show Liberal voters how their party’s policies are working against their own interests?
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Where to start?

I’m at a loss as to where to start.

There’s been so much big stuff been going on in the world in areas that I’m passionate about and in the rapidly declining state of affairs in our national political discourse—things like climate change, Adani, refugee policy, unprecedented attacks on civil liberties, concentration of power, and more… And I’m angry…
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Don’t fall…

I have a confession to make. I’m a “closet fan” of Linkin Park. While they’re not the “coolest” of bands in my circles, especially among my music friends, their first two albums Hybrid Theory and Meteora in particular sit amongst my fave albums of all time. Definitely a case of “I like your old stuff better than your new stuff,” but still…
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Arduino + ESP8266 hacking

This post is quite a deal more technical than my usual fare. I’m doing this as a write-up of some of the learnings, in part to share with participants at the OzBerryPi IoT meetup that occurred last night.

I’ve recently been investing some time into a project using Arduino as a wifi-enabled energy monitor.

I had an hypothesis that open-source hardware such as the Arduino and related chips like the ESP8266 wifi chip were approaching the point where someone like myself, with a reasonable degree of experience in web development, might be able to build a low-cost embedded electronics project (and potentially, down the track, product).

Here are a few key learnings from the journey so far…
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Clint Smith @ TED

This. A spoken word piece by Clint Smith—How to raise a black son in America. Really powerful… Unconscious bias can be deadly. #BlackLivesMatter

Reconnecting with music

I’ve been trying to reconnect with the art of having fun making music.

Anyone that knows me well knows that making and performing music has been a big part of my life for, like, forever.

But since Fuzu called it a day, in part due to my sojourn into Sustainable Practice at uni, I’ve found it hard to reconnect with any particular musical venture.
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Quieting the inner critic

One thing I keep hearing of late is that I’m verbose. That I like complexity. That I’m technical.

I’ve decided that here is not about listening to those voices. Here is about me unpacking the world and digging for answers. Or failing that, at least insights. If it’s verbose, complex, boring, convoluted, unclear, lacking a point—that’s ok.

Perhaps in expressing the “unfiltered” version here, I’ll be more succinct, less technical, and express an elegant simplicity in other aspects of my life. We’ll see 😉