Blog Marco

What is the proper etiquette in this modern world? How do we conduct ourselves in our civilised society today? How to we behave in public? As the world quickly becomes technologically advanced our society is faced wth many new challenges.

The mobile phone is perhaps the most intrusive invention out of all technological advances. It is disruptive and interupts usually quiet places such as work, banks, stores, places of worship or transportation like trains. Imagine sitting in a train carriage with someone carrying on a long and loud conversation for your whole trip. Public mobile phone usage simply intrudes into your personal space. If you are at a theatre or restaurant, let management know about the problem to avoid any problems.

Where can we go in an article about etiquette without writing about formal dining arrangements. It is confusing to have a huge array of stuff in front of you. Your serviette and bread plate is always to your left and beverage on your right. With utensils, work from the outside to inside and watch others if in doubt.

I've updated this website's layout with the goal to make it easier to read. Some minor tweaking. I didn't want to totally redesign it - it wasn't worth the effort to create a new layout with a new colour schema. I've made my website wider... its now a fixed width of 980 pixels. It started at 790pixels 4 years ago, then 815... The majority of visitors of this site have the standard 1024x768 pixel resolution. I've made the body text bigger and clearer to read. From 0.7em to 0.9em. I've also changed the font from the selection of "Helvetica, ans-serif, Verdana, Arial" to "Palatino Linotype,Georgia, Garamond, Sylfaen, serif". I find serif fonts are easier to read. I've also allowed for wider images. Instead of images being limtited to the maximum 400 pixels, new posts and the gallery photos from now on are a massive 600 pixels wide! Yay!

No I don't mean using your home printer to print out a whole book using your own ink and printer. I'm talking about walking into your local bookshop and printing up a book on the spot using a machine called an "ATM for books" by Time magazine. Even if the book is not on the shelves and is totally out of print - you can have it instantly. Angus & Robertson became the first Australian book chain to install the "Espresso Book Machine" (EBM) aka the "storymaker", capable of printing, trimming and binding a paperback book on demand within minutes. The bookshop chain has initially planned for several hundred out-of-print or difficult to get hold of books to be available, but Angus & Robertson said the range would expand daily, reaching 10,000 within 18 months. They would cost the same as the current shelf price of paperbacks or less, the retailer said. Which is great news as a typical Angus & Robertson shop can hold just more than the 20,000 physical books and it gives them a competitive edge against significant threats from online sellers such as Amazon.

When you go to the shopping centre (or shopping mall as they're called in the USA) - what kind of monster do you become? How do you handle you money when you go shopping? What kind of purchaser are you? Logical purchases are when you consider and research your purchases well ahead while an emotional purchase is based purely on emotions and are more likely to be impulse buys. Rate yourself on a scale... Are you extremely logical when you buy or are you an extremely emotional buyer?

Imagine that you've just purchased a product worth over $2000. Before you bought the item did you take some time to research all your options with regards to alternative similar products and compare features and prices? Are you the person who would research all the similar products and compare prices? Would you think about it for a few days? Would you buy the product instantly because what is the use of researching if THIS is what I WANT.

Imagine you went shopping and you came across an ipod you wanted. You can't afford it until your next paycheck. Would you wait until you've actually got the money in your pocket to afford the ipod? Would you layby the ipod? Would you pay for the ipod using your credit card, knowing that you've got a good habit of paying back your debt on time? Or simply throw it onto your credit card and worrying about the debt when you get the bill?

What happens when four hundred could sheep on their way to an abattoir die from a truck crash? Well two people were injured and 300 sheep died instantly when their semitrailer overturned in NSW Australia last night. 100 uninjured sheep were put down. The accident occurred in Mulwala near the NSW and Victorian border. What happens to the dead carcasses? Do people eat them? A they are simply put in a mass grave? Are they still edible?

I've always wondered what "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" meant. It was the title of one of the mathematics books we had in university - knowing now what the phrase actually means gives it some significance doesn't it? Well, to me anyway. The phrase also makes an appearance on the British £2 coin (2 pound coin) as the inscription on the edge and also on an Oasis album. So what does it mean? "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants" is a metaphor which means "One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past". Many great thinkers have used the metaphor including Bernard of Chartres and Isaac Newton his letter to Robert Hooke where he very modestly claimed that his success had been built on the achievement of others: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".

Last weekend, news of this "nude photos of a kid in a magazine" scandal surfaced. Magazine was called "Art Monthly Australia". The editor responsible for the magazine is Maurice O'Riordan... was he just trying to get free publicity by causing yet another scandal? Selling more magazines? Or was he honestly acting for the art community, trying to continue a debate that just occurred a bit over a month ago with the whole Bill Henson photography scandal. The photo depicted on the magazine cover is of a 6 year old - a model, Olympia Nelson who is now 11 years old and who says that ""I think that the picture my mum took of me had nothing to do with being abused, and I think nudity can be a part of art. I'm really, really offended by what Kevin Rudd had to say about this picture." It is also reported that the actual magazine contained photos of oral sex by an octopus, bondage images, including one of a Japanese schoolgirl in school uniform trussed up in rope while another image shows an adult woman also trussed up, with breasts and genitals exposed, according to Ms Tankard Reist, director of Women's Forum Australia. Art is a very funny business...

You may be wondering what is the minimum wage in Australia: This week, the Fair Pay Commission raised the federal minimum wage in Australia by $21.66 a week, which calculates to $14.31 per hour and the weekly rate to $543.78 (compared to the previous minimum of $13.74 last year or $522.12 per week). This minimum pay scheme in Australia starts from October 2008.

Here's a funny video of Jessica Alba. It's a YouTube video of our sexy Jessica Alba acting as Jessica Simpson on a Newlyweds parody/spoof on comedy show MAD TV. Enjoy her video!

I read an article today about university students outsourcing their uni studies through websites called RentACoder and Kasamba. There are other websites out there called Elance and Guru that do the same thing. You can write down what work you want done, post it on the outsourcing website and wait for the incoming bids from service providers from all over the world including India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

In the article, it discusses computer science students using these outsourcing services to have their programming assignments done by other people overseas. Perhaps it is more worthwhile for them to find part time work - being paid around $20 per hour and trading it with the arbitrage advantage of outsourcing with hourly rates starting from $2 per hour.

But don't stop with Bachelor of IT or Science in computing sciences. You can apply this outsourcing magic with any uni course. Journalism - you can hire people to do your research for you. Engineering - similar with programming - hire someone to "show you" how to do things, calculate equations, etc. Commerce - assignments can be tendered out to the best bidder. What if you can outsource the actual exam taking? You could probably do it with those computer multiple choice questions. Good luck!

A song with a mathing softcore porn music video: Alex Gaudino Ft Shena with a dance song called: Watch Out. Okay, we've featured the all time sexiest music videos (also here and here). We also had a list of controversial music videos. Today we are looking at another sexy music video by dance music master Italian DJ Alex Gaudino (of Destination Calabria fame). Obviously the video is referencing the World Cup but with sexy dancing girls in their bikinis and panties, what are you supposed to be thinking? Find the youtube music video and screencaps below.

A horse is Australia's deadliest animal. Next comes a cow then dogs. Followed by sharks, crocodiles, spiders, emus, cats and fish. These are according to statistics compiled by the National Coroners Information System whereby it shows horses are morst likely to cause a human death. Probably a great reason to discourage your daughter about dreaming to get a horse.

According to the coroner the deadliest animal in Australia is the horse: 128 deaths were recorded to be caused from an animal between 2000 and 2006 and of that 40 human deaths were due to horses. Although, this statistic is slightly flawed because the cause of the deaths were mostly due to the riders falling off and not a direct result of the animal attacking the human. 20 deaths were linked to cows and bulls which was usually caused by a car running into one or swerving to avoiding hitting one.

Obama gobbling a hotdog in Montana on Independence day 2008. While we're on the topic of politics, remember this funny photo of Bush?

I'm still on the lookout for jobs... from photography jobs to employment in the internet marketing industry. I was looking through seek.com.au and I sound a few jobs relating to employment with the Internet Marketing industry. Interesting to see a varied range of renumeration packages. One job offers $500-$600 per day?! for a three month contract. Another for an online marketing assistant offers only a $30,000 per annum salary. While another for a higher internet marketing job position called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Manager offering $50 - $70k per annum. Check them out: