Captain's Log.

From schoolyard bullying to mass killings, the live-stream feature on social-media applications has been abused.  [Un]Social media live-streaming was a step in the wrong direction. Since it's inception, the Internet has rushed into our lives, consumers constantly mesmerised by shiny new gadgets, offers, applications and online facilities believing all of it leads to gold. Gold is simply a lure to opportunity . There's no reward found in live-streaming. It says more about the lure to find one and those lured by what it promises or seems to promise them. What social benefit does a live-stream give a citizen, any citizen? Social media companies certainly know what benefits them. They get to keep/gain members but what does it do for you and I? Deranged individuals are attracted to it too. They are out there  being lured to their kind of gold . Social media doesn't discriminate who logs on or how it's used. If someone wants to strap a Go-Pro

Barbie turns 60 but this is NOT a story on the famous doll. It's about human relationships and how NEWS.COM.AU views this toy story. It's easy to overlook the obvious for something shiny, right? Barbie Doll ages 6 decades and viewers click on the link , ready to settle back to see a set of pictures of grey hair, droopy eyes and crêpe-paper neck.   Put that shiny down. Take a look at the break down of this page's web address at the top of the screen-photo. It starts with the standard NEWS.COM leader and then it adds it's sub-categories to place it where this story goes. (click on the pic to enlarge) ../lifestyle/relationships/dating/<barbie story> Every site organises it's posts and pages in the most logical way to help its visitors find articles easily and quickly. That's the life of modern websites. It's how all successful sites work! Good site managers know their readers well because they are feed statistics about them everyday. T

Logan City's Dark Fiction Writer Speaks My ol' mate Steven Knights and I used to knock about the streets of Logan very late at night. We'd get on our push-bikes and wreak havoc until sunrise. We thought we were tough but it was the eighties. Toughness wasn't measured by drug and knife usage. Staying out late playing Galaga or Space Invaders at the BP servo without our parents permission was our only real crime. Things have changed since my days in Logan. I hear there's a steady stream of the city's citizens frequently visiting the hospital in Meadowbrook. Some are genuinely ill, while others get a visit by doctors AND police. What happened to my little town? Logan City was always a low-socioeconomic area, even right back to its Albert Shire time... but it was safe, young yet growing at a fairly substantial rate. Steven Knights, Simon Jones and myself were never trouble, just enthusiastic teens. After I got my driver's licence and a small

More than once I've been accused of being a 'Pincher.' Like a bloody common criminal, I felt. I stole the wind? How does that work?  Wind pinching is a sailing term. There is no robbery, no real crime afoot. It just means I'm sailing a yacht way too close to the breeze. One degree more into it and the boat would stall. Stalling is not ideal. A sailing boat relies on the wind for forward movement so its captain can control it's behaviour through the water. It's called navigating. A stalled boat is uncontrollable, vulnerable, unnavigatible. It's better to turn away from the wind to maintain power and control of the boat. Craig got me into sailing years ago. I took to it right away. The first thing he noticed was my ability to read the wind and find the highest windward angle for his boat. I remember that day well. We took his Hartley 16 out onto Moreton Bay and headed out to Peel Island on a single tack. That one 'tack' thing

Chances are, Peter Elvison means nothing to you. He's nobody because the Internet is a large place. It's impossible to know everyone at once, living or dead. But there are some out there who'll do an Internet search in the not-to-distant future and type in the words Peter Elvison - to find out more about who the Mandurah man was. Perhaps you didn't know he was sick, he'd passed without anyone telling you or maybe you're sad you didn't make it to his funeral.  Perhaps you did attend but look for answers to questions you're unable to ask Peter. Things go like that. Life passes us by too fast. We miss stuff and feel annoyed. And in that vain, I'm providing my own memorial here on the Internet. It probably won't answer all your questions or alleviate every hurt but perhaps the mark I leave on this blog will give you some kind of peace.    Peter was my close friend. He died last week and we celebrated his life yesterday. (

Every gardener in each state of Australia adopts a common plant for their home gardens, something that thrives with little attention or effort. Brisbane's Signature Tree 2 'Poinciana' Brisbane's Signature Tree 1 'Jacaranda' In my old state of Queensland, Poinciana, Jacaranda trees (see above) and Bougainvillea dot the suburbs. That's okay for Queensland and the east coast of Australia  but what about the other states? What about one I moved to recently? Much of Western Australia is on a similar latitude (at least Brisbane / Perth are) and I expected to see similar vegetation when I moved across. This was not the case.  In Western Australia (Perth to Mandurah) there's a different plant duo that dominates yards, car parks, commercial precincts and such. It's Rosemary and Lavender ! I suspect it comes down to soil. The west doesn't have any! Much of the west coast (metro areas) is covered in sand. There's no nutritiona

Sometimes I just have to laugh at irony's effect on human life. There's nothing else left to do but smile. Golden Bay Western Australia is a picture postcard place. It's a stretch of around 15kms of sapphire blue ocean meeting rolling dunes. It's natural and untouched. No one in Golden Bay wants to see the dunes flattened by a new developer's plans to put a couple of thousand houses on it. Once that happens, the postcard look will be gone. The irony is that most of the placards placed around the Golden Bay area are on properties built in Golden Bay 20-40 years ago. These homes were taking bites out of the dunes long before someone got offended by it. Animals are today's bargaining item. Mass destruction means mass execution - a matter that leans on greater losses over shorter times. Forget that animals were lost when their homes, roads, highways, power, sewage went in. Death and destruction is totally different now. Irony continues as t