Two Sitting Ducks Pining for the days when blogs were cutting edge

Bill Wadman: 365 Portraits

I have previously linked to Bill Wadman's 365 Portraits on my TumbleDrew site. But I've just been looking at the site again and wanted to draw more attention to it.

Bill Wadman has to be the best portrait photographer I have ever seen. Technically, he achieves such wonderful sharpness and clarity in his images. This is combined with great colours and tones. Finally, how he manages to capture the uniqueness of a random person each day is amazing. Just by looking at their portrait, I get a sense of knowing the person.

As an example, have a look at this one, and this one, and finally, this one. But really, they're all great!

The Future from a 1950′s Perspective

I've got a real soft-spot for a particularly art style that was very predominant around the 1950's. It was a kind of watercolor/pencil kind of look and to my mind present almost a utopian view. I can't describe it very well, but [Paleo-Future](http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/) presents a great example [at this blog post](http://paleo-future.blogspot.com/2007/05/commuter-helicopter-1947.html).

What's even greater about that linked post is that it not only has that type of cool art work that I like, but it also combines a view of what people thought technology might come to. How much would you love to have a personal helicopter? Ah, for the days where there was no awareness of pollution, global warming, or terrorism.

No More Whereis For Me

The range of [Sensis](http://www.sensis.com.au) sites have been driving me crazy for as long as I've been forced to use them. They provide White Pages, Yellow Pages, and Whereis - all directories that are sometimes unavoidable. Their sites are slow, inaccurate and all-up pretty horrible.

The great news is that I can now ditch one of their sites, [Whereis](http://www.whereis.com.au) because Google has now come to the rescue. For a long time the big G has provided mapping services for the US and Europe. Now they've got Australian maps online. You can type in a vague search query, such as [Parliament House, Perth](http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=parliament+house,+perth&sll=-32.05208,115.7971&sspn=0.010676,0.014849&ie=UTF8&z=16&om=1&iwloc=addr) and it will take you right there. Furthermore, it will provide you with directions to and from another location should you so desire. You can also overlay Google's satellite imagery if you want to see what the terrain is like.

So I recommend that you do as I have done - forget about Whereis and start using [maps.google.com.au](http://maps.google.com.au) for your directions!

Vote Lamb

Rodney Olsen over at [The Journey](http://www.rodneyolsen.net/2007/01/you-know-it-makes-sense.html) brought to my attention the [official site of the Australia Day Party](http://www.votelamb.com.au/). I strongly support this movement, and I believe it would be in your best interests to check it out, especially the video address. Furthermore, I encourage you to check out the Extra Serves portion of the site, which will give you the chance to catch up on the previous campaigns. Go on, have a look at the site, you know it makes sense.

Traffic Waves

Like most people I imagine, I hate sitting in traffic jams. Especially here in Perth, drivers are particularly selfish and not that road aware. Peak hour is horrible. Traffic jams caused by too many cars with just one person in them.

Well, I've just come across a site that contains excellent scientific explanations of traffic jams, how they can be seen on a macro level as a scientific phenomenon, but most importantly, how a single person can have a positive effect on the entire flow of traffic.

In a nutshell, the key is to leave plenty of space between you and the car in front of you and actually encourage people to merge or cut in front of you. If that happens, fall back from that car and repeat the process. It will have a positive effect on the whole traffic flow and if you can keep a consistent speed without all the stop-start that so often happens in traffic.

It made for really interesting reading, so check it out [here](http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.html).