Sydney storm

Sydney storm
Originally uploaded by duncanmacinnis

A good end to an ordinary day. After being out at Campbelltown all day visiting my supervisor and getting some paperwork done, I set off on the epic journey to my parent's house in Fairlight. As the Manly Ferry left Circular Quay a spectacular storm was visible over Sydney's eastern suburbs. Burial's "Untrue" was the perfect accompaniment to the light show.

Some reviews

A bunch of stuff that I got to review for ITM before I broke my collarbone, and only just got around to doing:

Rob Sonic - Sabotage Gigante

Nicole Willis and The Soul Investigators - Keep Reachin' Up Remixed

and

Hi-Fi Mike - Hollywood Remixes

referring domains

referring domains
Originally uploaded by duncanmacinnis

Having a look at the referring domains on my flickr account I was stoked to find that someone had come across my photo's whilst searching for "12" penis". Hello ladies!

Click on the photo to find out why...

Bioessays

I came across the journal "Bioessays" while reading up on Steve Oliver's papers. The paper of his that I read is called "Here is the evidence, now what is the hypothesis? The complementary roles of inductive and hypothesis-driven science in the post-genomic era" - although you'll need a subscription, or access to a subscription, to get hold of it. It's an interesting piece about the philosophy of science in the age of Systems Biology, something that we just don't get exposed to in undergrad courses. It introduces the difference between inductive and deductive based investigations, and motivated me to get out and read some scientific philosophy - something which I was surprised to find Dad had a lot of.
Another interesting article, which is freely available, also deals with the philosophical aspects of post-genomic science. The author makes the interesting point that most scientists rarely consider philosophy important in science beyond ethical concerns, something of which I know I am guilty. It's very easy to get caught in a myopic view in science, reading only literature relevant to my day-to-day work (in fact, I probably don't read as much as I could), but Bioessays delivers bite-sized articles that are both interesting and relevant. There are quite a few more freely available pdf's as well.

Amon Tobin - Kitchen Sink remixes

Amon Tobin's music has a dark, almost sinister feel to it. On this four-track remix single he gets some like-minded individuals (including the so-very-hot right now Boxcutter) to remix his "Kitchen Sink" from his Foley Room album. Full review is here

Banksy N.Y.C. 2007 @ Vanina Holasek Gallery in Chelsea

Banksy N.Y.C. 2007 @ Vanina Holasek Gallery in Chelsea
Originally uploaded by LoisInWonderland

Mere days after I got asked to remove another Banksy from the desktop of our lab computer, I was again asked to remove the admittedly more confronting "Napalm" from 2004. It features Phan Thị Kim Phúc from the iconic Vietnam war photo holding hands with Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse.
While I appreciated the somewhat anti-war and anti-corporate message, this sentiment was not shared by others. Although, the fact that other people found it offensive did make me think about it more, and what exactly it was I appreciated about the image. I also read the wikipedia entry's for both the photographer who took the shot (still working for Associated Press) and the girl who is the subject (living in Canada and doing work to help child victims of war). If art is meant to make you think, then Banksy has definitely succeeded with this work.

While on the subject of street art, this is also one of my favourite images.

le toit du cul de chien

le toit du cul de chien
Originally uploaded by chrisfrick

I spent today at UWS Campbelltown sorting out the admin bollocks for my visit to Europe. One of the thing's I'm most looking forward to is visiting Fontainebleau, bouldering mecca of the world. This photo is by Chris Frick, a guy who I only know through flickr but who has been kind enough to give me feedback on some of my pics. Check out his photostream - it's amazing.

Banksy - Cock Artist

Banksy - Cock Artist
Originally uploaded by HowAboutNo!

I set this as the background on our communal lab computer a few days ago, and was asked to change it today. The "cock" was pretty much hidden under desktop icons, and most people thought it was pretty cool. Anyway, it was replaced with this.

Both taken from the Banksy Flickr group here

An introduction:

So, I got a blog - how very 2001. The main reason for this is to keep people up to date on what I'm doing on my upcoming European jaunt, but I occasionally have some stuff that I feel like saying, and notes on Facebook just don't cut it. I've always thought it rather conceited that bloggers think they have anything worth saying, and hell, I probably don't. I'll justify it by saying that I'm doing it to entertain me more than anything else, regardless of my real reasons.

A brief description of me: I'm a scientist who enjoys rockclimbing, photography and writing about music, although I'm not particularly talented at any of them. I'm doing a PhD, enrolled at the University of Western Sydney, but working day-to-day at the University of New South Wales.

Web Presence:

Flickr

InTheMix: reviews and such

and somewhere on here there is some rather embarrassing and out of date stuff that my dad has put up about me. I also note that he has used a photo that I took of him without attribution, clearly in contravention of the Flickr rules.

Word.