*From the raw, unedited, and possibly irrelevant point of view of a first time visitor.

Los Angeles feels untidy. From the trash on the freeways, to the smog, to the rambling suburban sprawl. I never felt invited. I’m sure it’s a powerhouse of world commerce and industry, but does it have to be so dirty?

North American toilets are strange. The bowl starts very full, and water is injected near the u-bend to (I presume) start a siphon action. It seems very convoluted, and would appear to prevent any sort of “half flush” option.

Las Vegas is awe inspiring and embarassing at the same time. The scale is difficult to describe. I stayed at the Excalibur casino, where I was king, and walked daily through the Luxor pyramid to the conference venue at the Mandalay Bay. The walk took close to 30 minutes, via 3 casinos (reeking of cigarettes and alcohol at all hours), 3 malls, and two other conference centers. The nearest I got to being outside during that walk was the view of the gigantic wave pool – beside the shark aquarium.

Some nights I took the free monorail back to my hotel. Passing between a Sphinx and a 10-story obelisk, and stopping outside the turrets of my castle. It’s madness on a grand scale, but that’s only three casinos. I took a walk one evening: past the New York skyline and scale statue of liberty; through the foyer of the MGM grand past the lion habitat; past the gigantic Monte Carlo hotel; through the foyer of the brand new 4-block-size Aria; finishing up watching the incredible Bellagio fountain – which is just opposite a near-scale Eiffel Tower.

I think I got almost halfway up the Las Vegas casino strip. All the way harassed by people trying to hand me pornographic business cards promising “Girls direct to you!”, and being bathed by the glow of partially clad women from every second billboard.

Despite the amazing sights of Las Vegas, the one thing I really noticed was the urban design. At every corner, intersection, and hotel entry, pedestrians are coralled like cattle. Directed with fences and sweeping concrete barriers away from the roads and into races and runs. I don’t know if it’s the almighty car or the desire to keep customers gambling, but it’s disconcerting. It’s certainly changed my views. Queen Street’s newly doubled barnyard crossings are utopian by comparison.

We joke about portion sizes, but they are almost literally insane. I asked for a small coke as a courtesy when I used a Burger King bathroom in LA. The coke was about halfway between what I would call regular and large. Same goes for meals. Most Las Vegas buffets trumpeted “all you can eat, all day long”.

We drove out to the Grand Canyon, via the Hoover Dam. The Dam is certainly an amazing piece of engineering, but I was more amazed by the water level. Apparently Lake Mead is it at its lowest level for many years. I didn’t flush my hotel toilet so much after that.

If Las Vegas was a car-mad fakesville, the Grand Canyon was serene grandiosity. My intitial view was from the Skywalk. An amazing feat of engineering that quite literally takes one’s breath away as you step out onto the glass walkway. But it was the unspoiled view at right that made me cry. Mostly because it was that gorgeous, but partly because Dad had always wanted to see the canyon but never got there.

The camera lens makes things much smaller than they are. To add some perspective, the far bend in the river was probably 30 or 40 kms away from my viewpoint. The river is as wide as a football field, but easily fit under my oustretched thumb.

On the way back from the canyon, I experienced more USA hospitality by way of a 2.5 hour traffic jam caused by a security checkpoint at the Hoover Dam. Luckily it wasn’t nearly enough to dampen the Canyon experience, and was further alleviated by a full-volume blast of Sugar’s Hoover Dam as we crossed back into Nevada after nightfall.

So I’m not quite sure how I feel. LA left me jaded. I’d probably come back to Vegas if only to share the jaw-dropping sights and giggling with my wife. But I’d recommend the Grand Canyon to anyone who gets the chance.

America, Fuck Yeah? I think I’d say “America: Fuck”.

Popularity: 6% [?]

The boy requested instant noodles. Lord only knows where he got the idea from. “Which ones?” Poppa asked. ”These ones are 99 cents. Those ones are $2.30.”

“What’s the difference?” Mr 5 inquired.

When I arrived to pick up Ollie from Poppa’s place later that afternoon, they were both at the table, with two steaming pots of noodles in front of them. One pot was plain-pack, the other an ironically unidentifiable name brand. They had compared the contents of the flavour sachets, and were conducting a taste test worthy of a 3-star sommelier. Ollie was quick to point out that both pottles contained a “foldy fork”.

“So” said Poppa. “What’s the difference?”

Ollie’s eyes swivelled up and left, indicating deep thought. “We-eeell”, he said in trademark singsong, “I thought the one with pictures would be better, but they taste the same.” The conclusion was obvious. “The pictures must cost a lot, but I don’t think they’re worth it.” He nodded sagely to himself.

I think it was about three months later that Dad passed away. It’s been four months since then. In those four months I’ve never answered Ollie with “just because”, or “I don’t know”. And I hope I never do again.

Miss you Dad.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I love the internet. It’s all about creating and sharing content. I’m more than happy for you to re-use my work on your own site, or perhaps “remix” my work (hey, we can all use editing help). There is one caveat: you must attribute the original source to me, preferably by linking to my site.

This is all outlined clearly by my Creative Commons license, linked at the bottom of all of my pages.

What not to do

If you want an example of what not to do, you can use doyouflip.co.nz, a site owned (I presume) by Flip Video (and therefore Cisco). They have lifted one of my reviews in its entirety and pasted it on their site. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not actually against the terms of my license. Where they have failed abysmally is they have given no attribution whatsoever. There is nothing on the page that suggests the content was created by anyone other than Flip themselves.

If you have a poor moral compass and need additional reasons to not steal content, it might pay to see the buzz generated by this within social media circles inside a couple of hours. Flip Video has an open social media strategy, so it’s easy to post on their Facebook wall, for example. A search for “flipnz” on Twitter also uncovers a couple of choice comments.

The sad thing is, it would have taken all of about 10 seconds to provide an attribution link on the original page. I wonder how much time Flip Video and their PR company will spend dealing with this today?

I’m not going to grace Flip or Cisco with a link, but the evidence is in the image below. I’m sure you can find the site while it’s still up.

How to use my content

It’s pretty damn easy. Use my content, but make sure you attribute.

Obviously, it would be lovely if you’d like to pay me to use my work (for example in print), but this is not strictly required. I do reserve the right to switch to a “non-commercial” usage license in future, but of course that is not retroactive.se to a

Popularity: 12% [?]

A lot has changed in the 5-plus years since the release of Baby 1.0. We’ve seen massive developments in both input and output language parsing, and the implementation of a self-cleaning function has been a godsend. Baby 1.0 has also reached the point where we can send it out to a development facility for several hours each day.

Since Baby 1.0 we’ve had quite a number of attempts to get hold of a new model, with a distinct lack of success. Thankfully, back on the 12th of August, we acquired a brand new version.

We’ve spent three weeks testing the new model Baby 2.0, and it has been a mixture of surprise and familiarity. The first surprise was the new quality control facility that had been constructed since 1.0. The facility is bright and clean, with much better views than the previous one. Great work to all involved.

The acquisition of Baby 2.0 was much more controlled than 1.0. With 1.0 we had to battle with the production facility for some 30 hours before finally resorting to a manual retrieval. After the failures with 1.1 and 1.2, the experts suggested we pre-book a retrieval for 2.0. We did this, and everything went swimmingly well. The package arrived intact, with all the correct parts. It was a little smaller than 1.0 (3.9kg vs 4.15kg), but equally appealing to look at. We did of course have no opportunity to select between the two main versions, but have ended up with one of each, which is great.

In general, Baby 2.0 has been equivalent to 1.0 in terms of behaviour and usability. The integrated alarm function is still poorly calibrated, waking us up several times a night. It took us several months to debug this function in 1.0, and I’ m hoping we can do the same with 2.0. The new model has a greatly improved ingestion system however, requiring very little help and causing a heck of a lot less pain and anguish than 1.0.

Overall I’m very happy with the acquisition. I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. 5 stars out of 5!

Popularity: 7% [?]

We have voted no. Regardless of my personal vote, the democratic outcome is that a vast majority of votes cast were of the opinion that smacking as “part of good parental correction” should not be a criminal offence. I’m not going to fiddle with numbers as some others have done to claim an apathetic majority. That’s not how democracy works. If you don’t vote, you don’t get a voice.

So then. A few months ago I made my personal opinion clear. Reading that post again, I still stand by it, with some clarification. After discussions with many people I hold to be wonderful parents with truly incredible kids, I’ve changed part of my opinion. You may not care, but purely for positioning, I accept now that smacking should not be a criminal offence in all cases, and frankly I’m a little ashamed that I’ve said otherwise. I truly do not wish criminal charges against any of the people I know who happen to smack their kids. Hopefully you can accept that one man’s dogma can be altered by exposure to fact.

The law, as it stands, clearly allows for “justifiable force” in several instances. These cover the range that most people would hold to be reasonable: avoiding danger, stopping disruptive behaviour, etc.. What the law does criminalise, and what I remain against, is the use of physical punishment for correction after the fact. I’d love to hear from the majority if they intended their “No” vote to enable physical punishment for correction, as opposed to instantaneous intervention.

If the question had been “Should a smack, as an instant intervention requirement, be a criminal offence”, I would have voted no. Would you have voted “Yes” if the question were “Should a smack, as a premeditated action intended to correct misbehaviour more than x minutes after the event, be a criminal offence?”. Or am I utterly barking up the wrong tree?

I ask this because as I read more and more online discussions about smacking and physical correction, the misinformation is utterly baffling. I’ve seen the argument that all mammals use physical correction, so it’s natural. I don’t however remember seeing a mammal hit its offspring some hours after the original event took place.

Please, this is not judgemental in any way. I’m truly, deeply interested in how to make this work, because it’s obvious that a minority of us don’t understand. You the majority owe me nothing, but I’d love to chat about your intentions so I can learn.

P.S. I remain a bit offended at Larry Baldock cheering like a madman at the result, after he was quoted as saying “I’m not opposed to the wooden spoon or ruler because you can control things with that better than you can with an open hand.” However I do understand he is on the fringe and not representative of many people who voted “No”.

Popularity: 4% [?]