This is… Interesting.
According to Twitter, I’ve made over 19,000 tweets. That means I’ve made 13,000 in the past week.
Even I’m not that addicted.
First Look: Lane Cove Market Square.
It has been the buzz of the North Shore of Sydney for some months now, but finally, Market Square in the heart of Lane Cove has opened. And yesterday, I had the chance to take a look around.
The first thing you’ll notice is that it fits in with the rest of Lane Cove. Rather than being a huge mega mall complex, Market Square stays true to its name with a modest dozen or so new shops along with a Woolworths supermarket, a wine bar/restaurant and a Fitness First gracing the modern interior. The building itself remains inconspicuously hidden, remaining low rise and using the natural slope of the land to pack in stores and 300 car park spaces. Market Square curves around to adjoin the local library, which is in the process of a similar makeover. Around the bend you’ll find a lovely courtyard and coffee shop which directly competes with the shop I work at and which could risk my job security, so don’t drink there (I tried their cappuccino, it’s really good!).
You’ll find boutique clothe shops, a sushi bar, children’s gift shop, pharmacy, butcher, deli, optometrist and even a fish monger along the brightly lit, glass fronted hallway of Market Square. The architects made the incredibly smart decision to include three sizable elevators in the design, quite a few for a center the size of Market Square. It’s a welcome addition that will please customers greatly.
One design feature that made me smile was the twitter inspired car park walls. Okay, while it may not be purposeful, for me its very reminiscent (much like the Windows 7 login screen) of the social network I love. For those in the UK, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that the Woolworths looks very similar to M&S Food. The polished concrete flooring, brushed aluminum and dark wood made me feel like I was taking a trip down Monnow Street in Monmouth to the local M&S to pick something up for dinner. Granted, the Woolworths in Market Square is larger than a local M&S but you get the idea.
It’s been around ten years since the idea for a complex in the heart of Lane Cove was suggested. But now, many, many court battles amounting to nothing at all, Lane Cove has it’s missing piece. Market Place connects the Plaza with Longueville road, provides a fresh new shopping experience complete with modern cuisine and adds much needed car parking spaces. After seeing the Plaza boarded up for so long, its great to see Lane Cove finally complete.
Please enjoy a selections of blurry photos of the new Market Square!
BONUS QUESTION: In which photo does mother make an cameo appearance?
EDIT: WINNERS! Mother is in the Woolworths photo. Congrats to @brokentapedeck and @dominicmay
Internet Vices
This site is hilarious! It’s lists many of the internets most iconic addictive services and relates them to a real world vice. Brilliant.
And true.
All true.
Especially the Myspace one.
Why Teens Aren’t Using Twitter: We’re Lazy
8:18 Jul 14th, 2009 | Notes
After reading Daniel Brusilovsky’s TechCrunch article Why Teens Aren’t Using Twitter: It Doesn’t Feel Safe, I felt compelled to put forward my own reasons for Twitter’s lack of popularity among our contemporaries. While Daniel says the reason is because teenagers don’t see Twitter as ‘safe’, I believe the reason teenagers don’t use Twitter is we are fickle creatures of habit.
It all stems from this question: “What is Twitter?”
That is the question that I, as a 16 year old like Daniel, hear from students every time I mention the addictive social network and the one I can never answer with any sort of adequacy. I can say anything; celebrities use it to get in touch with their fans, news sites post new stories, you can let people know what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter. I can say anything and be met with the same response time and time again: “Why?”
And there you have it, the unanswerable question. If you’re an average student with Facebook, there is no reason. The truth is there is no reason for the average student to use Twitter. It fills no gap in their social life like Facebook does.
But how did Facebook become that glue for every student to stay in contact? Simple, everyone started using it. Once enough people started using Facebook, everyone else followed. That flocking has not happened with Twitter. It comes down to that all important question: “Why?” While teenagers use Facebook, there is no reason why the average student should use Twitter.
Teenagers don’t use twitter because it feels unsafe, because Facebook gives them friends’ email addresses and instant messaging screen names and phone numbers, or because an SMS message costs too much. You have to understand that in schools, there are no discussions of ‘Social Networks’, there is only discussion of Facebook. There is no thinking of Facebook as a closed network and Twitter as an open one. You have to understand that there is nothing in students’ experience outside of Facebook.
Teenagers are lazy. We find one spot and we stay there, regardless of the fact that that grassy knoll over there looks more comfortable than where we’re sitting. Using that logic, the only reason teenagers don’t use Twitter is because Facebook came first and that’s where we’ll stay.
200
12:26 Jul 8th, 2009 | Notes
Ok, I had to point this out. I now have over 200 followers on Twitter!
I’m not going to bother trying to explain to those people who don’t understand twitter (you know who you are) why this is at all important an important milestone, because it would take to long to do so and you wouldn’t be convinced once I had finished anyway.
So happy 200th me!!!
2nd of July: What Time Is It? Seriously?
4:36 Jul 4th, 2009 | Notes
Well we’re here!
Mum and I arrived in London at 5:50am this morning. I have no idea how many meals we were given on the plane, but I’m fairly sure they don’t at all correlate to regular meal times. Seriously, who eats dinner at 2am in the morning after you already ate dinner at 6pm the previous day?
Our hire car is really cool. We were supposed to get a crummy Vauxhall, but we got upgraded to a Mercedes A-Class! Learn a lesson from us; always request to hire an automatic car, the hire companies never have cheap automatic cars in stock and you’re bound to be upgraded! Mum was thoroughly confused by the zippy German go-getter. She pushed the button to start the car, or so she thought, and all the windows rolled down simultaneously, much to her shock and my amusement.
We’ve just arrived at Diana’s house where we’re staying for a few days.
It’s around 1pm here as I’m typing this. While my mind is telling me I’m on British time, my body is telling me I’m on Sydney time and that it’s actually 10pm. As you can tell, I’m really tired and still have no idea if I should be feeling awake and perky, or incredibly sleepy and grumpy.
I’ve gotten my phone working with Orange after removing my SIM card from my iPhone using a coffee stirrer. I am going to get twitter working as soon as possible. Well, that’s all for now! Just about to have lunch then off to visit my 94 year-old great, great aunty.
TTYL!
Leave your comments below!
No Twitter For You This Tiananmen Square Anniversary Day
10:35 Jun 2nd, 2009 | NotesIt continues to amaze me that the Chinese government continue to think that they can impose such stringent censorship of the internet and still believe it works! Then again, when I was in China, the family I was staying with didn’t understand our bicameral, multi party electoral system when I tried to explain it to them. They were surprised to find that we had different parties we could vote for.
Okay, so censorship is working. Thank goodness I’m not in China at the moment because HOW COULD I LIVE WITHOUT TWITTER!?
TechCrunch says services like Twitter, Flickr, Bing, Live.com, Hotmail.com and Blogger have all been blocked in China as of today in the lead up to the anniversary. You may also be interested to know that my blog is also blocked in China! Yay! How exciting!
Trailer for the Twitter Movie as seen on Rove (comedy talk show in Australia). Kind of funny. To me it’s just a reminder that the majority of the world doesn’t get twitter.
Happy Birthday to Christina for yesterday!
As a present, you should follow her blog and twitter!
And in case you’re wondering, I totally baked this cake!
>.>
<.<
WHY DON’T YOU BELIEVE MEH!?
OK OK!!! I lied! HAPPY NOW?!
Likaholix is awesome! It’s an online service where you post things that you like! It’s like p0p that I talked about earlier, but it works better because of the larger community. It suggests recommendations based on what you already like, allows you to post other things you like and share your likes with twitter, facebook and friendfeed! As you can guess, my list is populated with Apple products.
I saw iJustine using this and so I just had to try it out!
