Project 365–Jan 2012
by Aaron on Jan.31, 2012, under living it up, melbourne, Photography
By now I assume everyone knows what a P365 is. This year, as per last year that went anonymously into a 3rd-party photo site, I am doing a Project 365. Keeping it simple, I am doing it from camera phone/point-and-shoot only. The idea is to create inspiration when you only have basic tools to work with instead of the real DSLR> January was busy – my creativity is someone zapped.
And yes I am aware there are more than 28 days in January….. –3 for me 
I did take a couple on the point & shoot but can’t find them at thm. Will edit if they appear.
37” of Imaris
by Aaron on Jan.29, 2012, under science, TechnoGeek
My new laptop has a few new fun toys – like a 2 gig video card with HDMI out. Imaris on a 37” LCD anyone?
It’s pretty impressive what you can get in a laptop nowadays.
Core i7 quad core, 8 gig ram, 2 gig nvidia, dual N-wifi, gigabit, dual video cards with the onboard intel, blu-ray player etc etc.
Rome II
by Aaron on Oct.30, 2011, under def
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.
Prato
by Aaron on Oct.16, 2011, under living it up, Travel
And then I went to Prato.
I have to say, I wasn’t expecting the satellite symposium to be as good as it was. I certainly wasn’t expecting Prato to be as good as it was either. When you first get off the train at Prato you get the real impression as to how dire Italy’s financial situation is. they are definitely struggling.
Prato has the feel of a functional city, not some tourist destination. Tat being said, it still has a. Damn lot of heritage. Some nice basilicas, citadels, town hall, mini-towers, crazy lane ways and the entire city centre is walled. Old school wall that they have kept intact. The river that wraps around it is definitely struggling. Pollution, shopping trolleys, dead birds etc kind of kill the view of the pretty bridges and awesome mountains that loom up just behind the city.
Walking around though, you can see the tradition. Tey are proud of being Italian. Th churches etc are maintained, but not dolled up for tourists. It has this raw, traditional feel to it that I really liked. The snack bars, caffes etc are alo pretty good. They aren’t crappy tourist destinations but are full of local produce, fresh warm bread and some great non-brand coffee. The quality of the food at everything I went to, crappy snack bars to full restaurants, was so much better then either Florence or Rome (except for one restaurant in Florence). I guess that Is the Tuscan way.
Monash Prato is pretty damn cool. A nice old building, good venue for a small conference and they put on a great arrangement of foods for morning tea, afternoon and lunch. To top it off they had a cafe bar where you can walk up any time of the day and just get an espresso/macchiato etc (with segafredo coffee). So much real coffee. It was really dam good.
The first night we also had the conference dinner.
WOW. It was at a Medici villa about 40 mins from Prato. Well worth the bus trip. The villa was massive.
You are welcomed to the first place with a wine. That’s a good start. There was so much antipasto and lots of other goodies. We were all full of great food. That was just the starters. We then migrated passed the wine bar to the top floor for a three course meal. It was probably one of the best meals I have eaten. Great wine accompanied it. Then there was an open bar of scotches, single malts, grappa etc.
Piled onto the bus and onto a bar in prato city. I didn’t stay long though. I just cant keep up with these old professor types.
So yeah not much tie to really check out Prato due to the conference but I’d say it is definitely worth adding to your travel list if you get a chance.
Firenze
by Aaron on Oct.15, 2011, under living it up, Travel
Well, when I last wrote I was about to turn up at Firenze or Florence as westerners have renamed it. The train ride in was good by the way. Some damn pretty countryside.
So… Florence. It’s a damn oldcity with some real heritage. A lot more built up then I expected and certainly busy. So many damn tourists, everywhere.
It is kind of a cool city and definitely pretty. It is also touristy. The way they have done the buildings up, everything is perfect. The street sellers, the crappy fast food.. It’s all so focussed on tourists.
In some ways it kind of kills the city. It doesn’t have the best vibe. Don’t get me wrong,it not ugly or anything, it just doesn’t have the cool vibe some euro cities have.
Tat being said I did find some damn good restaurants (one being cirro and sons). I also found mostodolce or something like that. It was one of the biggest bars in Florence (so still tiny) and it had it’s own home brew on tap. Pretty cool and did good food.
Te few locals I chatted to seemed pretty cool ut the city is full of tourists and they definitely cater that way,
Firenze Fiera as a conference venue kind of sucks. Poorly organized, crap morning after noon tea. No lunch. N wine with the poster sessions. Tey would only do coffee/water for the 20 min breaks a morning tea and Arvo. Tat really sucked. You need coffee to stay awake.
But Florence is awesome.from an architecture point of view. If you get a chance definitely go up the bell tower or the il duomo. Perfect views of the entire city. I loved the alleyways. It is a city of constant alleys. Geat for snapping away. So built up.
I did find some brilliant coffee (illy mainly) and one or two places had great take away food. Fresh ingredients but it was all pizza and panini for the most part.
Anyway, I’d go back, but it was a little overrated and the street seller are annoying. A little overrated, but ce’st la via.
Roma, il perfecto?
by Aaron on Oct.08, 2011, under living it up, Travel
Well, I know I don’t regularly write on this thing anymore but I thought I would, since I am currently on a train from Rome to Florence and I have 3G data.
Well. Italy. First impressions:
You land, average airport (fuimicino). Crappy “express” train to the city termini stazione. I have to say I found the taxi’s, people pushing for tours etc less in your face than I expected. I walked to my crappy hotel near bologna (the student area near the uni). I struggled to breathe. A lot of pollution and so many people smoke.. Like everyone. Mainly males but yeah. My lungs are basically allergic to cigarette smoke so I struggle. Anyway, it is pretty cool that in between old school urban dwellings there are random ruins. As in real random ruins. No labels or anything.
Anyway, the region I was in was pretty cool. I got a good feel for real Italian life. I like the non touristy areas.
Italian fast food is crap, maybe cause there were so many students around and so it was cheap food, all of it was just pizza and panini’s though. And gelati, everywhere. Nice people, most of them are really friendly and actually want to help. Coffee bars are damn cheap. 0.80 EUR for the local illy coffee. Typical Italian style, you stand at a bar and drink it. Most don’t have takeaway cups.
It’s all about eating. All of the bars are food places that happen to sell alcohol. An most do coffee. Nice old buildings mixed in with a few nicely renovated ones. Lots of crappy buildings falling apart. Lots of broken footpaths. As parked everywhere and lots of traffic.
Despite being so dirty I really liked it. More than I expected.
Te train ride in from the airport was depressive. You could see so many desolate buildings, housing commission etc. You get a real feel for the country being in financial strife. An a few buildings that look like they hadn’t been touched since the war, very German,Austrian,, czeq-like.
Old centre: well. You get off the colosseo metro station walk outside and bam! In your face. There’s an ancient colosseum. Kind of surreal. The whole region is just full of ancient history. S close together. Crazy old basilicas, forums, trade Cr res, gladiator pits etc. So many gorgeous buildings. What they built (for the time) was so damn impressive. So much to see. Walking around you get a good feel for what it was like. Some is in really good condition considering the age. Plenty were undergoing restoration though and so lots of barriers to spoil your photographs.
Gorgeous weather swell. 24 and sunny, slightly more humid than I expected, but pretty good.
Anyway, on route to Firenze now. Te countryside is gorgeous. Random castles and cute little villages dot the sides.
How to beat the system
by Aaron on Jul.16, 2011, under science, TechnoGeek
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…
Train vs tram, speculation and therefore fact
by Aaron on Apr.21, 2011, under melbourne, TechnoGeek, Travel
So, the public transport speculations continue… In Melbourne there is this whole tram vs train thing. Some people like trams, some don’t. It’s the same with trains. Recently, during the 5 weeks AAMI took to fix mydamcar, I was forced to catch the train. Tains are funny. People rarely look up and are so engrossed in their mobile phones or in crappy newspapers (MX) that they would not notice if the grim reaper sat next to them.
Intriguingly, catching the tram the last couple of days, it seems quite different. The trip to the city during peak hour revealed a lot of people on trams actually interested in their surroundings. People were looking out the window, people watching, looking at stores… Whatever. Very few seemed engrossed pin. Their phones and I have to admit, it was quite refreshing. I think we (myself included) do t disconnect enough. It was good to see people paying attention to the real world. Of course the dynamics are different. Tram rides are often shorter, but it still takes a damn long time during traffic. I for one, quite like trams. I quite like. iPads while on public transport too, but I also like just switching off. Observing, etc.
Anyway, in case you have not guessed. There is no real point to this post.
Perth–S&J’s wedding
by Aaron on Mar.28, 2011, under Cafe Culture, living it up, Travel
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.
by Aaron on Mar.27, 2011, under def
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.
