Recent content in Home on Nick's Blog
Every now and then, I’m reminded of values. Or more correctly, mis-matched values, at times and places I least expect it. It’s like there’s a hidden undercurrent that I’m not aware of, like a rip in the ocean, and it strikes when I’ve completely forgotten it’s a thing that can happen. I need to be more prepared as it usually comes as a bit startling. Let me…
I know I missed a couple of blogs recently but alas, I was busy and totally forgot all about it. And I also didn’t have a blog ready in the pipe so I could just polish and publish. I was going so well on my 2026 target too! A reminder I’m doing a weekly blog thing this year, with posts being published every Thursday (except this time, oops). One of my rules is “no AI generated…
Thursday again. Wow, this comes around fast. If you’re just joining me, I’ve been writing a blog-a-week since the start of 2026. Every Thursday. And it’s been going well, because I front-loaded my CMS with a few blogs as I thought of them ahead of time. Now I’ve got to the end of the pre-written material and I need to start picking up topics off my list. Today’s topic…
… or at least it was for me. Crucially (pun intended) before the giant DRAM price spike in late 2025, I built a new gaming PC. There was really completely wrong with my old PC and it had lasted me many years but it was just at that age of starting to show struggles with the latest games like Blue Prince. Blue Prince doesn’t feel like a very taxing game, however my PC did struggle to…
For the past few years, I’ve really bulked up my CD collection. And just because it’s 2026, I’m not going to stop right now, at least not until I have all the albums I’m really keen on. Problem is, I keep discovering more albums I must have! Why I collect CDs in 2026 While perusing the CD racks in an op-shop, there is a dopamine hit when you find something really good, you…
While I’ve never signed up to a paid subscription of Spotify (or similar streaming music service), I’ve missed having ready-access to my music collection for a long time now. Growing up, I had a lot of music playing out through a classic setup of a bunch of MP3s and Winamp on my PC. You know, the software that really whipped the llama’s arse. It was an unbeatable combination at…
Recently, I’ve been really getting into disc golf. Also known as Frisbee golf. Also known as frolf. I’ve never been into sportsball. PE (Phyiscal Education) was such a struggle at school for me and I was always strangely sick exactly on the day of the athletics and swimming carnivals. Non-swimmer was never an option growing up in Australia but that’s a longer story. I’m…
I’ve never been one for ’new year’s resolutions’. But suddenly, I feel inspired. This blog has largely been ignored for a long time. I’ve been focusing on other non-blog things and outside of keeping the lights on and things patched in my CMS, it’s been zero features delivered for a few years now. The feature image for this blog is of a house we inspected in…
Scientific Name: Nasturtium officinale Description Grows well until the caterpillars get hold of it. Then struggles and then comes back to life again. Very easy to propogate by using a cutting with roots, which it seems to produce a lot of. Source Flower Power, from the ‘bargain’ section Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watercress
Scientific Name: Hellebores Description Great plant for shady spots and beautiful blooms in Winter. Should get some more for filling up those hard-to-fill shady spots along the fence line. Source Flower Power Enfield Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellebore
Scientific Name: Helleborus x iburgensis ‘Anna’s Red’ Description A deep red colour to sit alongside our ‘regular’ greeny coloured Winter Rose . Update on 2020-07-12: Planted today! Source Flower Power Enfield Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellebore https://www.flowerpower.com.au/anna-s-red-hellebore-9313208053305
So I picked up a few old PC components - mostly Socket A era circa 2001 - and whilst I battle with various buggy motherboards from the era (probably due to bad capacitors which plauged everything at that time it seems), I’ve been thinking about the various video cards I’ve had over the years. Mostly were for games, although there were other applications too (and long before ML with a…
I’m having a bit of a nostalgia moment. So warning, rose-tinted glasses may be in use today. Despite there being a lovely high quality version of Neon Genesis: Evangelion with a fresh (and I’m told, more accurate) dub available on Netflix, I’m going old school. My usual readers won’t be surprised at this, for I am a fan/collector/tragic of the MiniDisc, amongst many other…
I was drawn to a spoken word sample a few years ago, but didn’t learn about it’s source until later on. Right near the end of the track 3 Play it Cool by Crazy Penis , there’s this awesome sample about playing a b-flat trumpet. Here’s the clip: (scroll forward to 5:38)
A little while ago I wrote about My favourite YouTube channels right now (in fact, that was almost exactly 1 year!) and more recently I’ve been getting into music a whole lot more. Something that accelerated this process is the purchase of a much quieter piano that can be played at night, with headphones, without really disturning anyone. It’s amazing how much more I’m able to…
There’s something a little bit magical about being in the office. I didn’t think I would say that, but I think all of this time during the pandemic working from home has made me really appreciate being in the office. I’m writing this post right now, from the office. I came in today to farewell one of my staff (sniff… it’s always a happy/sad time) and collect their…
Lately I’ve been reading Made in Japan: Akio Morita and Sony which is the autobiography of Akio Morita, co-founder and former chairman of Sony Corporation. It was originally written in Japanese of course, but I’m reading the English version 😊. What attracted me to this book was Morita’s famous quote about the Sony Walkman : “Nobody openly laughed at me… Everybody…
Lately I’ve been looking into NAS (Network Attached Storage) for home so that I can access my files from any computer at home. I guess moving everything to “the cloud” would be an option but could get costly depending on how much data I want to shift and with the crippled Australian internet with really poor upload speeds (my top tier ‘best available’ connection caps…
This is a bit of a thought experiment. Recently I wondered about how much rigour and big G ‘governance’ is helpful in architecture. Specifcally, the digital architecture kind I’m involved with in a daily basis. I want to see the role of governance accelerating teams to make great architectural decisions, not to hinder them. In some ways, this is similar to prescriptive…
Description Had a good season and then collected the seeds, now growing from seeds, very slowly! Source Bunnings Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinacea
Scientific name: Solanum tuberosum Description Bought a cheap $3 discounted bag of seed potatoes, lets see how they go! Source Bunnings Gladesville
Description Instant Thai restaurant fragrance. Fruit are lumpy but seem to be very acidic. Source Unknown Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_lime
Scientific Name: Zantedeschia aethiopica Description Declared weed but seems to grow in quite a controlled manner in our yard. Fills up one super shady portion of the garden where other plants fail to grow successfully. Source Already established Links https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/declared-plants/arum-lily-declared-pest
Next time you’re on the road, look around you. Experience the sea of cars all painted with greys, silvers, charcoals, gunmetals, blacks and whites. But mostly you’ll probably just see that super common “tar” colour. Why are cars so darn boring when it comes to colours these days? We have the technology to use such a huge range of colour and yet every car on the road is…
So I haven’t posted about leadership training for a while now, so it’s probably a good time to get back into sharing my thoughts and experiences. For context, the leadership team in my job meets as a group, approximately every month or so, for half a day, to improve how we work together. Today, I’d like to drill into the topic of “ideas” as they relate to some…
Super quick post today, could probably be a tweet, but eh! Here’s what this site looks like on a text-based browser, in this case, Lynx : Not bad I reckon. I can imagine a lot of modern sites look pretty trash in CLI mode. But I guess this site is hardly trying to be “modern” from it’s design, I mean, chiselled buttons that look like buttons ? That would never be allowed in…
This is less of a guide, more of an ‘oh, it can work’ experiment. So it’s only partly serious and mostly fun. So buckle up! I apologise in advance for the camera work - CRTs displaying interlaced content are hard work! My original idea was to set up a connection from my PC to the TV to play old games and I did investigate going down the SDI route, however strangely my Sony PVM…
I was chatting at a recent family gathering about some of the great content on YouTube - to the point where I’ve practically given up on regular “TV” (streaming or broadcast) and go seeking for other interesting content from outside of the ‘regular’ media fold. This is nothing new of course, but I figured it would be good to share some of my picks including why I turn…
Today’s post is a deep-dive into the late Robert Miles , a driving force in the formation of dream house and someone whose music I’ve spent far too much time listening to over the years! This blog is part-tribute and part-analysis. The best kind of blog. Plug in some headphones. Firstly, some fast facts: His original name was Roberto Concina and he was born in Switzerland. He was born…
Scientific Name: Commelina cyanea Description A weedy native that grows rather well in shade… this one has pretty blue flowers, not to be confused with the invasive white variety which is not a native plant. I also read that you can eat the leaves… probably relates to the name “scurvy weed”, so next time I’m sufferinig from scurvy, I’ll have a munch on these.…
Scientific Name: Lamium maculatum Description White Nancy' Source Chatswood Plant Market Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium_maculatum
Description Source Unknown Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impatiens
Scientific Name: Lagerstroemia Description We have two colours which are twisted into each other, so you get a combo of pink and purple flowers at the same time. Responds well to a good prune over Winter! Source Already established Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagerstroemia
This document aims to test a custom JavaScript-based Markdown editor which is easy to use and covers all features supported by Hugo, the fastest static site generator. It’s a WYSIWYG editor which takes over a textarea element in a web app. Probably the closest editor which is similar (but not identical) is https://simplemde.com/ I guess you could say this is not a real blog entry .…
Description A couple of local houses seems to grow them well in their front yards - so we thought we’d give eggplant a go too. They are growing nicely in our garden beds! Source Bunnings Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggplant
Description Our freezer is full of Garlic, but you can always have some more! Source Giant bag from the Fruitarian, Ashfield (planted the sprouting ones), originally from Spain
Scientific Name: Capsicum annuum Description Amazing flavour from these chillis. The heat is not too intense, just the right amount of kick . We often use 1-2 chopped into a dish of bolognaise, right at the end, just before serving. Source Family Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s_eye_chili
This post was inspired by one of my mates, Boyter and his post about intern interview questions . Thanks for letting me answer your list of questions! I was fascinated with both the questions and his answers and figured I could have a shot at answering these myself to see where we get to. I met Boyter when we had a bit of a LAN party group going during high school because of mutual friends, so…
I was reading this article in The New Yorker the other day and I suddenly felt inspired to write my own reflection. The article of course pulls strongly on the nostalgia strings. But it’s also a story of leadership, too, and I’m in that era of my career/life where suddenly that’s actually really interesting. It’s 11pm. The room I’m in is a toasty 25’C.…
Description Amazing fragrance and super large blooms in it’s first year. Let’s hope every year is as good as this one. It also grows really tall and straight, so I call it our pagoda! Source Bunnings
Well, I thought I would have more time for this, but as luck would have it, I’m writing this on a mere 2.5 hours away from the magic midnight-new-year deadline. So I’ll just write whatever comes to mind and I feel like sharing. I’ll share whatever photo I’ve taken recently as the featured photo. Here’s a cricket bat stuck in the tree, for safe keeping, in Ashfield.…
For some background, I run a small web design/hosting/what-have-you business on the side of my main career . I’ve written about this before here . Interestingly, most of my clients are either dentists or dental specialists. I thought it’s time to think back over the past 12 months - as much as they’ve been pretty unusual - and reflect on what’s next for the little old…
Description A slow but lovely number! Source Unknown Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahlia
So it’s been pretty much 8 months to the day since we entered the “everybody work from home” era of 2020. Mid-March. That feels like an eternity away, yet 2020 has gone so very, very fast. This part is not unusual. However, 2020, what a year it has been. It’s not quite over yet, with about 5 weeks to go until the end of the year. And it was certainly a very different year…
Description ‘Eureka’. A very strong lemon tree which is now producing a good quantity of fruit. Has to be pruned to keep the shape compatible with nearby garden shed. Source Daleys Fruit Tree Nursery Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon
Recently I’ve been following the trend on collecting “big box” PC games. You know the ones, mostly from the 90’s, from particular software houses like Apogee, Sierra, Lucasarts, MicroProse, Maxis… This is a great video explainer from Ahoy (and the host’s voice is so damn calming, too): Thanks to a tip-off from a work colleague, I picked up a nice copy of…
I found this book ( 505 Unbelievably Stupid Web P@ges ) on my bookshelf from 2003 (it was a gift at the time) and I really doubt many of the sites from back then are still around today. Maybe they are. And who would write a book about websites and print it anyway? Madness that could only come from the dotcom era. So I have this bit of a routine thing going on where I visit a core set of sites each…
Scientific Name: Spathiphyllum Description Because everyone needs an indoor peace lily plant. Source Present from my uncle & aunt many years ago. Links https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spathiphyllum
So, this whole ‘work from home’ thing is working out OK yeah? What if you wanted to get out of the city centre, out of Sydney and move to a ‘more’ country location and keep working as if you were in the room next door? Good internet is a must. And there is only one worthwhile technology: Fibre to the Premises (FTTP). Anything else is just a waste of time.
Scientific Name: Prunus domestica Description Very pretty in Spring when the snow white blossoms come out. Sometimes we get the odd one or two in the middle of Winter, because plants seem to often get confused about seasons these days - no doubt affected by climate change. We don’t tend to get a lot of fruit and it falls on the ground a lot, but the tree itself is an impressive size and…